In The Woods
by S-Jay494
Summary: A hike in the woods turns deadly for Bobby and the Winchesters when a predator targets the boys while matters closer to home also threaten to tear the family apart. Sequel to "In The Wind." Second in the AU series. Features Dean, Sam, John, Mary and Bobby.
1. Chapter 1

Notes: This is Part 2 in the series. The first installment was the AU tale "In The Wind," and while this story can be read as a standalone, it will make more sense character- and arc-wise if you read that one first.

Warning: I don't use a Beta. Please excuse the typos. You get the raw/unedited story as FF writing is my stress reliever from novel writing.

* * *

**oOo **_**PRELUDE**_** oOo**

_Lawrence, KS_

_July 4, 1983_

John Winchester turned off the hose then surveyed the gleaming condition of his car. Sure, the sleek, 1967 black Impala was the oldest car in the neighborhood. All of his neighbors were transitioning from the big muscle cars of the '60s and '70s to the modern compacts churned out by Japan. Sure, those got better mileage, but they were made of plastic and crumpled at the first sign of a crash. There was no way he was letting his wife and kids climb into one of those.

Kids.

John shook his head and smiled at the notion. There were now two Winchester boys in the house. He could hear little Sammy howling through the open nursery window on the second floor as he woke from his mid-morning nap to let the world know he was hungry yet again. The crying ceased within moments signaling that Mary was with him to alleviate the hunger pains. In the ensuing silence, John quickly scanned the front yard, realizing his charge for the day was not by his side any longer. The momentary skip of his heart beat was soothed as he spied Dean on the other side of the front steps, tearing up fistfuls of grass from the lawn and collecting them in a large pile.

"What are you doing?" John asked the four-year-old with the large, owlish green eyes and spattering of freckles.

"Making fireworks," Dean replied in his tiny voice.

"Fireworks?" John questioned then shrugged. Sure, he figured, why not. He was supposed to take Dean to see the fireworks that night while Mary and the baby stayed home. If the kid thought he could make his own from a pile of dead grass, it would at least keep him out of trouble until lunchtime. "Alright, just don't blow up the house with them, okay?"

"Okay," Dean nodded eagerly. "Daddy, where does Bigfoot live?"

The question caught John off-guard, as most of Dean's questions did. The boy was not precisely a quiet child but in the last two months, the part of his brain that needed to know everything had switched on. Every other sentence out of the boy's mouth was question lately.

"Bigfoot?" John repeated and cast a curious look at his firstborn. "Where did you hear about Bigfoot?"

"Jeff," the child said naming their neighbor's high school aged son. "He was going camping. I said you and me were going camping. He said make sure I have a gun because Bigfoot lives in the woods and would eat me."

John sighed and made a mental note to tell their neighbor's pothead son to stop trying to scare his boy. While there was something fascinating and prideful in having a little boy who asked so many questions, there was also the problem that he asked them of everyone. Teaching Dean to be wary of adults was top on John's to-do list.

"First, no talking to Jeff unless Mommy or me is with you, got it?" John said with a frown. The little boy nodded eagerly. "In fact, you shouldn't even be outside unless Mommy or me is with you. Next, there's no such thing as Bigfoot. Jeff was just telling you a story. There are no monsters in the woods."

Dean grinned, returning to his growing pile of torn up grass. John shook his head. How the boy would turn the shredded mound of grass into fireworks a mystery to John as was a lot about how Dean's head worked. John was not new to fatherhood. Dean was four and a half. Of course, until the first week of May, he spent most of his time with his mother. Now that his baby brother had joined the family, John was finding himself in charge of his oldest more than ever before. Still, what went on in his firstborn's head baffled John. It was a good bafflement. The kid was clever and creative; he had a wicked grin that told John there was a lively (and probably naughty) sense of humor budding behind those green eyes.

"Will bears eat us when we go camping?" Dean asked abruptly.

John nearly choked holding in his laugh. He didn't see anything wrong with laughing at some of the crazier things Dean said, but Mary thought it seemed insensitive or mocking to their son. John doubted the kid would think that. One of the things about his wife that irritated John was Mary's constant ascribing of vulnerable traits to their son, characteristics John did not seen. Dean was a rambunctious, little boy with a fan club among the women on their street and the cashier ladies at the grocery store. The only things about Dean that concerned John were his aversion to the concept of bedtime and his grudging acceptance of his baby brother.

John and Mary spent a lot of time explaining to Dean through the winter that he would have a sibling in the spring. He seemed okay with the idea until Mary brought baby Sammy home from the hospital. That weekend found the house full of crying: Mary for hormonal reasons, Sammy for hunger and wetness instances, and Dean for what John presumed was jealousy. Four years being the center of the universe came to an abrupt halt for Dean on May 2nd when his brother greeted the world. The pediatrician told the Winchesters it was a phase that Dean would outgrow soon but that would rear its head again when the boys were nearing their teenage years and hit the juvenile wasteland of moodiness and flaring tempers. John dismissed that assessment, the teenage aspect of it, as he would not need to face that for a decade. What he did hear and accept was the doctor's advice about giving Dean things to do that would keep him from feeling jealous over the baby's monopoly of Mary's time.

John's solution was to introduce the boy to the things he knew: sports and cars. Of course, he was learning how short Dean's attention span was. The boy could not sit still long enough to wait through an oil change on the car and found it more fun to tackle John on the couch when he was trying to watch sports. Not that John minded Dean's chaos much. It was just a learning period for both of them. He forced himself to keep his cool when Dean wasn't paying attention; after all, he reminded himself, Dean was just a child and they had a lot of years to spend together learning each other's likes and tolerances. That knowledge was driven home hard the day John realized his son was the same age that he himself was when his own father disappeared.

Thoughts like that put life into perspective for the former Marine. He looked down at his son, whose big, trusting eyes blinked innocently at him, waiting for a response about forest creatures. John's throat tightened with opposing feelings: anger and loss over his father's departure; and intense protectiveness over his own family. He vowed, as he did each time those thoughts swelled in his mind, that nothing on the planet would separate him from his young family.

"Don't worry about bears either, Dean," John pet his head affectionately. "I'll never let anything hurt you. Besides, we're not going camping this summer. That's next year when Sammy is a little bigger. This year, you and me are going fishing."

Dean hooted his approval then tossed his grass gatherings in the air, sending them raining over his head and his father's feet, demonstrating his fireworks display. The boy then cocked his head to the side suddenly. His eyes contracted into narrow slits as a signal another of his deep and (likely) off-the-wall questions was bubbling up.

"Are there sea monsters that can eat us?" he asked.

John sighed and hung his head, making mental note to try and figure out why his son was suddenly seeing imaginary monsters around every corner.

**oOoOoOo**

_June 1994_

_Singer Salvage_

_Sioux Falls, SD_

The basement of the ramshackle home was dark except for the flash pot that ignited as the match touched down on the summoning powder of the blended herbs and roots. The puff of smoke was brief and the burst of light momentarily blinded Bobby Singer, but the surprise standing before him was what struck him dumb.

He never expected the summoning spell, the one he had researched and worked on for a year, to work. He only attempted it to satisfy one last buckets-of-crazy idea. Singer had been trying to crack the mystery of who took the Winchesters boys a decade earlier and figure out how they were suddenly found for no logical reason in 1993. In all his wildest estimations, Bobby never imagined it would end with this. Sure, he suspected the spell would turn up something, but Vegas would never have given odds on what he saw before him.

The seasoned hunter barely had the time to strike and throw his second match to the floor, igniting ring of oil resting there, before his knees gave a shudder to his resounding shock. The flame flared instantly and burned in an eerily quiet and smokeless fashion while Bobby gaped at the other presence in the room.

"You?" Bobby marveled as he stared at the visage before him.

The short, blond man with the arrogant smile and perturbed scowl, offered him a sour and bored expression as he looked at the ring of holy fire. The visitor folded his arms and sighed superiorly.

"You rang?" replied the man Bobby knew until that moment only as his quirky and absentee neighboring property owner 'James Smith.'

"You're a… a….," Bobby stammered, barely able to get the word out. "An angel?"

"No, you used an Enochian spell to summon the manager from Dominos," the creature scoffed with an eye roll.

"So, angels look like humans," Bobby said, more to himself than the being.

"Wrongo, chief," the angel replied shaking his head pityingly. "The human form can contain the energy that is an angel. This devastatingly dashing exterior is a vessel. A willing and suitable one, I might add, that I've grown accustomed to over the last few millennia."

Bobby stared, gaping actually, at the man/vessel. The sigh he heard from the angel seemed both understanding and perturbed. The hunter/junkman struggled to compose his thoughts and find his words.

"Well?" the angel asked. "What's with the hocus-pocus, _compadre_? Bobby, if you needed to speak to me, you could have called. You have my new number, right? I gave that to you, didn't I?"

The short angel's confidence and arrogance were amplified by the flare of his temper at being trapped in the flames. He showed no fear of the tongues of fire flicking around him but he emanated definite disdain for the man who trapped him in the burning circle. The air of the basement hummed with his presence, as though every molecule of air was electrified.

"Which one are you?" Bobby asked sternly, trying to regain his focus. He was glad he hadn't dropped a load in his pants when the spell worked. Shitting himself in front of an angel, regardless of which one, seemed like pretty bad form.

"What's in a name, Bob?" 'Mr. Smith' chuckled, but there was a pained look in his eyes that said he knew the semi-retired hunter wouldn't just let this go.

Seeing that he was locked in equivalent of holy handcuffs inside the flames, the odds of sidestepping an interrogation weren't precisely in the angel's favor. He knew Bobby was not a typical hunter as he did not kill for sport and only doled out prime information on a need-to-know basis.

"Gabriel," the angel replied eventually in a smug and superior tone while still managing to sound like he was pouting.

"Gabriel?" Bobby repeated stunned. "As in the archangel?"

"No, the rap star," Gabriel scoffed. "Now, I've said it once, and there's no need for you to repeat it so _ixnay _on the _aim-nay_, alright? What do you want?"

"To know why the hell you took those boys," Bobby insisted, his features dark and distrusting in the flickering fire light.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Gabriel shook his head. "Boys are not my thing, pal. I prefer the ladies, if you know what I mean."

"I know I'm about to barbeque your ass if you don't give me some answers," Bobby threatened, hoisting his canister of oil to shake it menacingly.

Gabriel snorted and looked at his lighted prison. He shook his head and let the hunter know he wouldn't answer until this weapon was no longer pointed at him. Bobby chewed on the possibilities for a moment. He couldn't exactly keep an angel simmering in his basement forever. Besides, the man, creature, celestial whatever, had offered to answer him. Bobby wasn't sure he could trust an angel having never met one or met anyone who had met one before, but he figured his chances of being smote were stronger than his chances of being lied to if he kept Gabriel on the hot seat too long. So he grabbed a bucket of water and doused the flames. Gabriel offered an insincere nod of thanks.

"Sorry to waste your time, but I don't know what you're talking about," the angel shrugged.

"No, it was you," Bobby seethed. "Now that I think about it, I think some part of Dean sort of remembers you."

Bobby always noted that the teen grew oddly withdrawn and sullen around his "landlord" _Mr. Smith_ whenever the guy dropped by, which wasn't all that often, but it was always without notice and seemingly for no reason at all. Dean never said anything to Bobby about Smith, but Dean Winchester not saying anything when he should was one of bugs in that machine. The teen obviously did not distinctly recall his kidnapping or who took him. What Bobby did know from a pilfered report about the boys' unexplained reappearance in Illinois, the eldest of the Winchester children stated someone named Gabriel took them. The rest of his statement seemed like nonsense until that moment. The boy told authorities that he traveled by light when he left his home. Seeing the angel's appearance, Bobby now understood. It seemed to Bobby, now that Gabriel/_Smith's_ cover was blown, that the boy sensed something or some detail about the landlord that remained buried just beneath the surface in the kid's hazy memories of his abduction on Halloween Night a decade earlier.

The angel scoffed and relented with a half-hearted shrug.

"Hard to believe, but windexing Tweedle Dumb's coconut was a harder than expected," Gabriel snarked. "That's my brother Michael's doing on some level I'm sure—particulars of the vessel and all that (the prima donna). As for why I did it, that's none of your business. I had good reasons, which are not for you to know."

Bobby glowered and cut his eyes once again at the holy oil, but the suddenly sincere look on Gabriel's face made him halt.

"Look, I can't go into details," the angel said in a pleading tone. "I'm sort of in celestial witness protection so the less you know the better it is for everyone involved—the brats, their parents, you and especially little, old me. I will say this: I took two very big and nasty bullets out of a gun that was going to wreak holy hell (and I meant that literally) on this planet. The boys had to give a little to get a lot. They're home now so no harm, no foul. Are we done?"

"Not quite," Bobby shook his head. "If all is well, then why are you still nosing around every once in a while."

"What can I say," he shrugged. "I'm all heart. Besides, those boys adore me."

"Dean thinks you're a pervert getting chemical castration," Bobby offered. "Sam thinks you're a lonely head-case whose family doesn't want him around so you're looking for friends."

"Well, one of them is half right," Gabriel grinned. "The smart one, of course. I always liked the younger one better. His older brother tried to bite me the night when we met—whose the deviant now, huh?"

Bobby scowled, unimpressed and aware his question had not been answered.

"You tagged 'em," Bobby began. It wasn't a question. "All those carvings on their ribs-that's why we couldn't scry for them."

"_Si Jeffe_," Gabriel nodded. "Now, none of my kind can find them using our secret spy glasses. The competition might be able to locate them, but I've been around—stash a little hex bag here and there so _voila: _They're nowhere the supernatural on the map. For that, you're welcome. Of course, the flip side is you can't find them with your little bags of tricks either. They've got their own semi-permanent Deathly Hallow Cloak of Invisibility, you might say."

"Their what?" the hunter asked squinting with frustration and anger.

"Oh, right, that book's not written yet," the angel grinned in a naughty fashion. "Spoiler alert: Snape's a hero. Undercover agent and all that—he's kind of like me only not nearly as handsome and nowhere near as charming. Plus, I always get the girl in the end. Well, girls, actually. Not like they can resist me. Any-who, now that you're not trying to fry my wings extra crispy, I gotta go."

"Wait," Bobby commanded. "So you're protecting the boys still?"

"Uh no," Gabriel shook his head. "Past tense. I protected them. Back then. From a terrible fate. Not to get maudlin or cliché, but I'm talking Armageddon type of bad hair day, okay? Bottom line: One of them didn't get the ruffie of a lifetime and the other… Well, let's just say that without Frick being on the supernatural juice, Frack kind of has no relevance to the rest of the play, if I've read Dad's Cliff Notes thoroughly. So game over. Everyone goes home with a little trophy called free will. The Winchester boys get exactly what they should have from the start: A chance. That's all. No supernatural powers. No mandate to sacrifice any chance of a real life to save humanity. No special rules whatsoever. They're people, just like everyone else now. You cut them, they bleed. You feed 'em McDonald's or Oreos all the time and they die of heart disease, that kind of thing. Or is that if you feed them after midnight? I always get that mixed up."

"So that's it?" Bobby said. "You say you saved them from a big bad fate and now you're dropping them? If that's true, then why are you still checking in?"

Gabriel shrugged. The truth was, he found the Winchesters fascinating. He knew what they could have become—he'd seen it—but he was more fascinated by what they were becoming. Some aspects of the family had remained the same. They boys were still close, and Singer was still a large part of their lives.

Others aspects of the family were tantalizingly different. John was not a revenge driven hunter who left behind fatherhood for his role as a militant commander. Mary was alive and doted on her sons alongside her husband. However, the most colossal shift Gabriel said was in the youngest. Never being doped with demon blood cut the searing selfishness and self-righteousness (traits straight out ofLucifer's truck-load of issues) out of Sam's personality. He was a little kid and wasn't a precisely docile and agreeable puppy about everything, but he was really no different than any of the other 11 year-old in his homeroom class. He wanted his own Nintendo; he wanted to become a scientist to create his own version of Jurassic Park; he thought the X-Files was creepy (but said it was "cool" when he was around friends). Gabriel's mad dash with the boy a decade earlier cut off the yellow-eyed minion's chance to create the would-be vessel and thus removed Sam from serving as Lucifer's meat suit. Keeping the bitch blood out of the boy's system entirely and abruptly ended any chance for the aggressive edge that would have taken hold of Sam Winchester. Now, the boy was allowed to be what nature intended him to be: a polite and curious boy with floppy hair and desire to understand the world around him while pleasing those he cared for most.

While the changes in Sam were astounding, Gabriel was a bit disheartened to note that the same could not be said for Winchester Offspring Number One. Everything that made Dean Winchester who and what he was remained the same. The original factory settings were in place, and (emotionally) the scars caused by his 10-year exile from his parents left him reasonably close to the person he would have grown up to be had the archangel never stepped in to change the family's fate. There was a moment on that fateful Halloween Night when Gabriel nearly did not take both boys. Removing Sam from Azazel's reach was his only goal, but something changed the angel's mind at the last moment so he grabbed Dean, too. Some part of him just couldn't leave the drooling human alone on some doorstep, so big brother got to tag along, and Gabriel stood by that choice.

Of course, there was a price for that.

The debt was paid out of Dean's emotional security and development. The child developed a heightened protectiveness of his baby brother and a tendency toward sacrificing for the little guy. That personality quirk was born as much out of being an older brother as it was to being what amounted to the underage parent to his sibling for so many years. So, right or wrong, where little brother profited and thrived in his removal from the celestial equation, Dean was saddled with a destiny as watcher, keeper and protector. He did so at the cost of his own happiness for such a long time that he still struggled with finding a balance with his own heart's desires.

Since reuniting with their parents, Dean's sense of purpose was gone. Absent the constant need for vigilant duty to protect and raise his baby brother, Dean floundered in a swirling pool of doubt. Where the teenager had previously held an unwavering sense of purpose and responsibility, he now drifted aimlessly through life. Certainly, his determined nature still existed, but now it was scattered and unfocused. Whether that would sort itself out or become his downfall was unknown—but Gabriel felt that was the beauty of it. No one knew what might happen to either of the boys anymore. Every possible future (except the pre-ordained one) was up for grabs.

"I'm waiting," Bobby said as he continued to glare at the angel as his demand for information went unanswered. He gripped the handle of the sawed-off shotgun on the table tightly. He doubted it would actually harm an angel, but it would sting for a moment. There was no way anyone felt refreshed after a load of rock salt in the face.

"Don't even think about it, Quick Draw McGraw," Gabriel warned see the man's finger's flex. "We both know my ninja skills beat yours without trying."

"Oh yeah?" Bobby countered. "Then let's see them."

"Well, here's the thing," the angel continued in an embarrassed tone. "The more I do, the more likely I am to get outted, so I'll have to pass on your request to tango."

"Are you watching them or not?" he asked darkly.

"I'm not their personal guardian angel," Gabriel scoffed. "Trust me. The guy who got that job in the first draft, it did not turn out well for him or his trenchcoat. I'm talking clipped wings, time in the penalty box, a bad wardrobe, an unrequited man-crush, and a hard on for a demon who got shivved before her time. You following me?"

"No," Bobby glowered.

"I lay low and things go along smoothly, capiche?" Gabriel replied. "That being said, if Heaven steps in or any minion of Hell on a mission specifically from my brother discovers your little nose pickers, I'll be around to help. Honest. You have my word: I swear to Dad. Other than that, the Winchesters are on their own out here in the big cruel world. You and their parents are hunters. Well, at least you and their mommy were. Daddy only did some understudy work this go around, which is a little sad considering his family legacy, but whatever. Who wants to live in a concrete box in Kansas anyway, right? So, you can choose to teach the boys the truth about what's in the dark or not. How you choose to protect them is your business. The boys are at least as safe as any other amoeba salsa'ing around this old Petri Dish. They make their choices. They live with their consequences—just like you. What more do you want?"

Bobby shook his head. He was not pleased with these revelations. He felt in his gut he was not getting even a fraction of the story. If Gabriel was right and the boys were free to live their lives, then there was no destiny they needed to avoid. It made taking them away for so long seem pointless and purposefully cruel. If the angel was wrong about sidestepping destiny, then what was to keep some other force of the universe from putting things back on the track? Bobby didn't think fate could get hoodwinked so easily.

"How about some assurances my boys are not gonna up and disappear again if you change your mind?" Bobby said.

"Whose boys?" Gabriel grinned. Again, the attachment the hunter had to the two children was fascinating to him. There appeared very little in the world that could keep the man from being a force in their lives.

"You say you protected them from a worse fate," Bobby growled, sticking to his point. "What's to keep someone from dealing those cards again?"

The angel scoffed and rolled his eyes superiorly. He shook his head and patted the hunter on the arm patronizingly.

"Trust me, it can't happen now," Gabriel assured him. "I'm not all cuckoo salad brains behind this pretty face. I thought about it for a long time, okay? What I did was the solution. See, that nasty destiny was a two part equation. All I had to do was take the lime away from the coconut so no one could mix it all up. I made sure my bratty, temperamental brother's hand simply never got dealt. It takes two to tango, but now we've only got one dancer. No partner equals a disqualification so game over."

Bobby found himself nodding, but he was not certain why. The angel's arrogance was worrisome but who was he to argue with that sort of creature? A being that knew more than anyone else about creation and destiny was a debate opponent well above his pay grade.

"Those boys, together, are now no more special or interesting than any other human," the angel proclaimed. "Someday a reaper will come for each of them. Is it tomorrow, or next year, or 70 years from now? I don't know. That, my friend, is the gift. The Winchesters get to live their own lives. That was what mattered to me. That was my gift to them—to everyone on this planet."

Gabriel patted Bobby kindly on the shoulder, his smug grin still in place. He clapped his hands with finality and then shrugged.

"Okay, well, now that the cat is out of the bag, I'll be making myself scarce," Gabriel said. "Don't be paging me like this often or giving spoiler info to anyone about who I am or what I did. I need to stay off the radar—and so do those boys. I can watch from wherever I am. The more people who know who I am, or the nearer I am to them, then the higher the chances that they'll get spotted. Understand_? _Good. Live long and prosper. Don't call me, I'll call you. Got it? Good."

Bobby stared back at him, digesting his offerings and unsure what to think.

"Oh," the angel snapped is fingers and turned quickly with a knowing expression, "and just as a little friendly advice, you might want to make sure you don't let Big Foot eat them for lunch."

Before the hunter could ask what that meant, the angel vanished in a rustle of invisible wings.

**oOoOoOo**

_Singer's Salvage_

_One week later…_

The phone rang, again. Each of Bobby's phone lines had been going off like crazy for the last week and a half . He was on the verge of cutting the wires for each of them.

Not that he would.

But he was burned out and in need of some quiet time away from hunters—especially those who didn't know their ass from a Rugaru (and God knew Travis thought everything was a possible Rugaru these days). It was like the whole damn world of hunters went and got stupid all of a sudden. Bobby blamed himself a bit. He'd made himself less of a field man and more of a phone man and researcher in the last year. Sticking close to home to help keep an eye on the boys (he thought of them as his boys). In that time, he became the wayward hunters' crutch, their lifeline, their cheat sheet for a test, the Cliff Notes version of 'Knowing What The Hell You're Doing When You Go Hunting.' And he was tired of it.

Not that dragging two snot-nosed brats into the Black Hills of Wyoming constituted peace, quiet or relaxation. And not just any two kids. The Winchesters no less: the thinker, Sam ("I Think I'll Cease To Exist If I Don't Ask Why Every Two Minutes"), and the prowler, Dean ("I Wasn't Listening To What You Just Asked me, But Did You See That Hot Chick"). The only good news was their father wasn't joining the outting.

Sure, having John there to keep the boys in line and help play a zone defense to keep them corralled and busy would be nice, but Bobby had been in the field with Major Dad before—on a hunt—and it wasn't any picnic. John liked things his way, no matter what. He was stubborn and bossy and grouchy and demanding. Bobby knew that hunters described himself the same way, but that was not important. Bobby, at least, knew he was more of a free spirit than John. He would enjoy being out in nature with the boys. John's uptight nature would sap some of the fun out of the trip. The former Marine might enjoy the alluring and enticing peace of time away from the bustle of daily life, but his protectiveness of his sons would turn him into a grouchy bear when they were far from home. He spend his time dictating the proper way to set up a tent and secure the food over night. Those were all great things to learn, but there needed to be time to just show respect to the forest by sitting quietly and watching the shadows fall and listen to the birds call to one another. Bobby was all for being safe and teaching the boys the best way to do that, but fun needed to be part of the equation.

John was getting better at that kind of thing, Bobby knew. He had found a common interest with Sam in the promise of camping. The boy liked to look at seeds and leaves and anything in nature. John knew about roughing it and had taught his youngest how to build and use a compass. Sam lapped up the time with his father on their walks through the wooded areas around their house. John also had found common ground with his oldest son during long hours at the Salvage Yard where he taught Dean what he knew about cars: what made them run and how to fix them when they broke down. Still, putting John with both boys in a forest where he had to go into parental commando mode was just asking for the tougher hide of his Marine personality to re-emerge. The last thing Bobby wanted was a surly camping partner barking orders at rambunctious kids and treating the forest like an enemy that needed to be tamed.

So Bobby and the boys were going alone. And he needed to finish packing if the damn phones would just stop ringing! He had started ignoring them 15 minutes earlier, then his guilt jumped him, and he picked one up. It was Allard, asking if there was a summoning spell for a water wraith (something he damn well should have known there wasn't). The next was Rufus asking for Bill Harvelle's other number (something he damn well should have known also). Finally, Caleb called asking for (unbelievably) Bobby's chili recipe. At that, the hunter vowed he would leave them all high and dry for a few days. He had put the word out a week earlier that he was going to be out of town. That no one seemed to remember that or believe him was their problem.

He returned to his hiking pack. It had been years since he went to the woods for pleasure rather than a hunt. He felt a bit shaky doing so. He laughed at his fears as he checked his supplies once again: Decontaminating tablets for water purification (boiling didn't kill everything after all); friction wire for cutting small branches; a second compass (in case Sam's homemade one wasn't so accurate); two sets of waterproof socks; an extra set of flints (yeah, he had matches but he was gonna make the boys try to start a fire the way Bobby had learned, back in his '_caveman kindergarten days'_ according to Dean), and his lucky flask (no way he was gonna make it a whole four days with two boys in the woods without needing a belt at least once).

He looked across the table at the other items strewn there. Many things from his hunting kit that had been weeded out as unnecessary for this trip. His hunting journal was going with them; he took that everywhere. His eyes next fell on the crucifix and his mind was drawn back to the conversation with his winged visitor a week earlier. An agent of heaven had watched over the boys once before and was still doing so, even if it wasn't openly admitting it. Bobby hadn't told John or Mary any of what he knew and wasn't sure if he should. Gabriel was pretty firm on remaining anonymous. Pissing off an archangel didn't seem wise, no matter how Bobby justified it. Still, what bothered him more was the lack of reassurance the information gave him.

Bobby shook his head, again amazed at what a loon the angel was. Then again, Gabriel's quirks did not seem all that odd in the grand scheme. Nothing supernatural was ever reasonable or rational (not for long anyway). The wingman's quip about Big Foot was a prime example. Everyone knew that creature was a hoax.

Of course, that didn't mean Bobby was heading out unprotected. He peeked one more time into his bag. A nickel-plated .44 loaded with silver bullets gleamed up at him. He pulled it out and checked the clip and the slide—both were in working order. Confident in their function, he slipped the gun back into the pack and offered up a small wish to the universe that he would not need to use it. He would also be bringing his old hunting rifle, the one used on woodland critters—the kind people knew about, accepted existed and ate. That weapon would be visible and only used to get their dinner.

He looked to the long-barreled gun resting against the table then turned his eyes away from his concealed weapon as he closed the pack. Critters with claws didn't have to be supernatural to be dangerous, he knew, but some of what was chalked up to attacks by those creatures were actually nastier, darker things no taxidermist ever mounted on a wall. With a deep sigh, he cut his eyes at the currently stilled phones. His face momentarily twisted into a scowl. On a whim, he snatched up a receiver and dialed. The phone on the other end rang six times before a machine picked up. The softly accented tones of a son of the Lakota Nation carried over the line.

"You have reached a recording of Summer Proudfoot," the man's voice recited in a precise and peaceful cadence. "You may now speak to the wind."

The beep swiftly followed.

"Summer, it's Bobby Singer," the hunter said hesitantly. "I'm just calling to give you a heads up, sort of an insurance policy I mostly likely won't need, but…"

**oOoOoOo**

* * *

**A/N:** More to come. Hope you enjoyed the first chapter in this story. I published it in time for Thanksgiving as a Thank You to all of those who enjoyed the first story in the series and were so kind to post reviews and send me private messages. Like with the first story, this one starts slow. Hang in there as I take the boys on a vacation they won't soon forget. Chapter 2 will be published soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**oOoOoOo**

Voices rang from the small home, a formerly abandoned Catholic house of worship once known as St. Gabriel's. The house sat at the edge of Sioux Falls, about a mile south of Singer's Salvage Yard. The home was white and located in the center of a rolling meadow accessed by a end of a long, snaking driveway. The afternoon sun baked the dwelling and wilted the early season flowers in the window boxes. The air outside was still. Crickets and tree frogs filled the air with their heat wave opera that acted as a suitable soundtrack to the hot tempers and loud voices inside.

In the kitchen, Mary Winchester narrowed her eyes and folded her arms while forcing a smile onto her face. Her long, blond hair was pulled back into a tight pony tail and the dark circles under her eyes stood out prominently on her pale skin. Her jaw was set firmly and her shoulders held squarely as she kept her gaze focused. It was nearing 4 in the afternoon, technically Day 1 of school summer vacation for her sons, and already the mother of two was biting back her tongue to count aloud the number of days until the new school year started.

She had arrived home for the day just after the lunch hour and now was on the verge of tearing her hair out because her firstborn, an attitude ridden 15-year-old, was tap dancing on her last and fraying nerve.

Mary was on edge since she woke that morning. She wanted to blame it on her lack of sleep. She tossed and turned all night in the heat of the South Dakota weather. Their house's lack of air conditioning, but it wasn't weather that kept her from peaceful sleep. No, the dreams did that, her nightmares. In each, she would come home to find her children missing, their beds cold and empty with no clue where they were or how to find them.

The dreams were old and had stopped for a while but then suddenly returned with a vengeance that week. The reason for that was obvious: Her sons were leaving again. True, this departure was planned and would only last few days. They would also be with one of the best bodyguards she could ask for, but that did not mean she liked it or was happy about it. Letting her children out of her sight to go to school was hard enough. Letting them leave the state and hike miles into the wilderness without her made her heart thump fast and caused icy pains in her stomach.

Her lack of rest and enormous level of stress was making her testy and snappish. In normal circumstances, needing to give one of her children three reminders to do his chores would not make her happy, but it would not put her in full lecture mode. But this was not a normal circumstance. Mary's mommy worry senses, were in overdrive. Her patience was down to its last few strands, but she held herself together as best she could.

She took a deep breath, and leveled her cool, pale and determined eyes on a set of bright green irises nestled in a thick mat of dark lashes that gazed back at her challengingly. Mary realized that she needed to go into full motherly guilt mode. While she knew Dean was a tough, mildly arrogant and practiced cool customer at times, he had two known weaknesses in the universe: pretty girls and family. She put on her best smile and played her card carefully.

"Sweetheart, let me explain something to you," Mary said in a calculatedly and stern manner. "When a woman gives birth to her child …"

"Oh, shoot me now," Dean groaned loudly then attempted to leave the kitchen en route back to his room.

However, Mary was swifter than his departure. She reached her arm around him and steered him back to the table, which took a bit of stretching now that he was nearly taller than her. She guided him back into the chair at the kitchen table and kept her hold on him firm over his shoulders as she continued.

"Childbirth is very painful," Mary continued. "Have I ever told you that I was in labor for 12 hours with you, Dean? It was agony."

"More than I'm feeling having to listen to this?" he wondered dryly.

"Imagine breaking 20 bones at the same time," she nodded.

"Are they all large bones or little ones like pinkie toes and…," Dean began but was silenced by her blazing stare.

"It's 20 bones, Dean," Mary told him firmly. "Big or small, 20 is a lot. And it's painful, more physical pain than you've ever experienced, sweetie. Do you know what I was thinking the entire time I was giving birth to you?"

He flashed a quick and impish grin.

"If John ever comes near me again, I'll castrate him?" he offered. "Guess you forgot about all that pain a few years later, or we wouldn't have Sammy, huh?"

His smile radiated from his bright green eyes and offered their own comment: She really should have known better than to leave him that sort of open ended question. Despite her festering frustration with him, she nearly caught herself smirking in return. She dug her fingernails into her palms to hold her composure as she stared back at him flatly. After a moment, Dean's grin slowly faded, and he dropped his eyes sullenly as he did not get the reaction he sought. Instead, Mary looked at him with her disappointed mother expression—the one she knew he called a 'bitch face' when he thought she was out of earshot. As aspects of remorse and contrition began to seep into his expression, she sighed.

"No," Mary said, squeezing his shoulder then patting him gently on the back. "I kept thinking it did not matter how much it hurt me because the reward of meeting you was going to make every moment of torture worth it. I suffered pain so blinding that I nearly broke your father's hand as I squeezed it, and I did that just for you. Now, how do you think I feel when I ask you to do one small chore to help out around the house, but what I get in return is griping, complaining and a plateful of attitude so that I have to waste my time arguing with you, giving myself a headache?"

"I'm betting you feel like you should have taken the drugs they offered you so you could avoid 12 hours of…," he began but stopped as he caught her full glare yet again.

The smirk faded from his eyes this time as he chewed his lip remorsefully. He knew better than to parry words with her when she used that tone of voice _and_ gave him those kind of looks. She wasn't mad at him, which made it worse. No, instead she was disappointed in him, something that pained Dean probably nearly as much as giving birth to him had hurt her, he guessed. He opened his mouth to try and pull back his answer but knew he was too slow doing so as she launched into the real guilt assault of this tussle.

"Are you giving me all this trouble because you don't think I've gone through enough pain yet?" Mary asked. "Am I that bad of a mother that you think I deserve this aggravation?"

Dean kept his eyes on the floor but did not respond. He knew she was good at this as he felt his shame rise and drain his will to rebel against her. He internally kicked himself for letting the spat go this far. He could see where he went wrong. Any other day, he could have cajoled her rather than riled her, but he miscalculated her focus. The smudges under her eyes and the sharpness of her tone were red flags he missed until it was too late. He sighed and prepared to take his scolding. He didn't like it, but he was still getting used to having parents again. He just thought it unfair that his father and his mother used different tactics.

When John was displeased, he would yell and bark threats of reprisals (no TV, no chances to drive even though Dean had his learner's permit, no going out with friends, no going to the salvage yard to hang out with Bobby). That behavior worked for Dean. The teen considered himself a cause and effect kind of guy. Action and reaction. He could follow his father's militaristic style and get on board with it, even if he didn't always appreciate the outcome (after all, grounded was nearly Dean's middle name this year). But at least his dad's approach made sense and was predictable. Dean understood the man's rules (even if he didn't always agree with them). They were firm and disclosed upfront by the guy. Oh, and his father had an unspoken agreement about emotional boundaries. John Winchester didn't do guilt. He had expectations. He told Dean what he wanted plus how and when he wanted it done. At the start of the chore/order, John let Dean know precisely what to expect if the teen failed to deliver. It was precise, predictable and logical. They rarely fought anymore for that reason.

Mothers, Dean was still learning, were a different breed—not so different from high school girls because they did not seem to follow any rules. Mothers were harder to manipulate. They were also confusing because some days sarcasm got him grounded; other days, it left her laughing at his comments and earning him an offer to put off his chores for a while and have pie with her to talk about his day. He wondered, exasperatedly, how any creature could function without any identifiable rules and get away with it—especially if that creature lived with retired Marine Corporal John Winchester.

His mother's approach also left him frustrated. His father recognized that Dean was not a child; the man did not treat Dean completely like he was an adult yet, but he gave Dean more mature expectations and offered him respect commiserate with that. John acknowledged and acted like he believed that although Dean needed supervision, it did not need to be constant.

His mother was a different story.

She hovered. She watched. She checked in constantly. Dean suspected she had a spy network in town because she seemed to know everything—good and (more often) not so good—parts of his days before he ever got home. She also knew how to get him to bend to her will without a single threat. It was freaky the way she did that and was probably against all sorts of civil rights… probably (he didn't paid all that close attention in class when they discussed the Constitution). But beyond running her own CIA against her kids, Dean was convinced she also had super powers. She could just look at him a certain way, giving him this impossibly sad and hurt expression then get mushy with him. It was torture and manipulation, like Jedi level mind control. She could make him feel like she was hurt or might cry, and he could not think of much he would not do to spare her pain and tears.

Looking at her in that moment, the hint of glassiness in her eyes tugged on his heart while making the muscles in his jaw bunch as he realized he was snared yet again. As Dean slowly surrendered to her unstoppable skill, Sam walked into the room. He lugged his backpack for their camping trip the next morning with him. It was bursting at the seams with supplies but was perfectly balanced for the hike. He'd been packing and re-packing it for a month to get it just right (unlike Dean who threw everything into his bag an hour earlier). Sam knew he was more eager for this trip than Dean, but he hoped his big brother would take the excursion seriously and enjoy it.

Sam certainly was going to enjoy it.

It had been a long time since he and Dean had an adventure. Not that Sam was knocking having a real home and parents. He wouldn't change that for anything, but he kind of missed the afternoons in Chicago when it was just him and Dean wandering around, riding on Dean's bike and exploring all the old buildings in the rundown blocks surrounding the orphanage. That was fun and exciting, and he missed it a little bit. Going to the woods, to go camping for real, with Dean was all Sam had dreamed about for weeks. So, hearing their mother speaking to Dean in her lecture voice, the one that usually preceded him getting sent to his room not to leave for entire weekends, did not bode well. After all, they were supposed to leave before the sun came up the next day.

"Oh god, what did you do now?" Sam groaned dropping his pack loudly on the floor. "Tell her you're sorry and won't do it again. Please."

"Why do you automatically assume I did something wrong?" Dean snapped.

"Because I know you," Sam shrugged. "Mom, whatever he did, he's sorry. Really, he is, like deep, deep, way deep down, probably where you can't see it. I'm sure of it, and even if he's not, you not going to ground him until after we get back, right?"

Sam turned his soulful hazel eyes on her and blinked preciously—the way he did naturally and also knew often made her pause and reconsider whatever punishment she was about to dole out. Not that she punished him often. Taking his brother's interruption as a chance at escape, Dean patted his mother on the shoulder.

"Wow, that's kind of disrespectful, telling you when you can discipline your son," Dean shook his head as he turned a strategically disappointed expression to Sam. "I think maybe Mom needs to explain to you about childbirth and warrior way of the woman. I think her little speech might mean more to you, Sammy. Right, Mom? Think about it: When I was born, the whole pain of having a baby was a surprise to you. With Sam, you had time to think about it and know what was coming at the end, which means you knew what you were getting yourself into. You obviously wanted him more than just out of curiosity. It's like you went looking for the pain. That's twisted, Mom. You ever sought some help for that?"

Dean grinned despite his brother's warning face (a budding bitch-face the kid was apparently learning from their mother). In Dean's opinion, Sam was too interested in pleasing their parents to see that sometimes they liked it when you took initiative and pushed the boundaries a bit (but only a bit). Sam always brought home stellar grades in all subjects. He got awards at school for his projects, helping others, perfect attendance, and model behavior. He always did what was expected. For that reason, he hadn't yet learned how to read people.

Dean did not fault his younger brother for this. It was partially Dean's own doing. He protected the kid for 10 years, keeping adults away from the boy as much as possible; telling him to keep his head down and his mouth shut. Not drawing attention to himself for Sam meant pleasing whoever was in charge: case workers, foster parents, teachers. Dean was the one who felt his job was that of a soldier and scout. He tested the territory, found out who they could trust and protected his brother at all turns. Now that they were living some place safe with people who were family and legitimately cared for them, Dean no longer had to play that role so constantly. Sam, however, still relied on his former survival training of appeasement.

"Dean, shut up before you make whatever you did get worse," Sam grumbled as Dean began to move away but was halted.

"No, he's right, Sam, I'm very twisted," Mary agreed, not letting Dean slip away so easily. She kept her arm over her oldest son's shoulders. "However, my point, if you had bothered to listen, was that if giving birth to you caused me that much pain, there really is nothing else you can do to top it with your mouth or antics. So I am letting you know now, whatever you're think you're going to get away with today, I can outlast it. I always will. Do you know why?"

"Because you're twisted and enjoy pain?" Dean offered skeptically. Mary nodded. "So you're like Schwarzenegger in '_Predator_' going after the alien that's stronger, faster, and smarter than he is?"

"A bit like that, only with the determination of the Terminator," Mary smiled knowingly. Speaking Dean, as she and her husband referred to it, required an agility with pop culture references and the skill to joust with just the right amount of sarcasm to keep him listening.

"Wow," he nodded seeming impressed. "I never realized you were such a head case. I thought that was Atilla the Marine's bag."

"Oh honey, your father has nothing on me when it comes to crawling through hell," she smiled. "So, to get back to our original discussion. This is the last time I am telling you: Stop stalling, stop griping and stop complaining about the weather. Get out there right now and finish mowing the lawn before your father gets home, or you'll be mowing it in the dark with him watching."

Dean scoffed than moved toward the door. He put his hand on the knob and looked back at her over his shoulder with an expression of defeat and disgust.

"Just so we're clear: I didn't inherit the masochist gene from either of you," he said. "I'm pretty sure making me do this in 90 degree heat with 98 percent humidity is a form of torture and child abuse. I'm certain it's against the Geneva Convention."

"We aren't at war, Dean," Mary called sweetly as she waved at him pleasantly.

"Speak for yourself," he grumbled as the door banged loudly behind him.

Sam hung his head then shook it as he watched his brother scuff his feet in the driveway and listened to him bitching out loud to himself about being treated like slave labor. Dean, Sam figured, always made things harder on himself than he needed. His older brother did not start many fights or get in many with his parents, but every single one Sam observed seemed easily avoidable. Dean simply grouched a lot about everything. Bobby always said it was just a teenage thing, and Sam hoped he was right because that meant Dean might outgrow it someday so he wouldn't have so much trouble with adults. Sam worried about that because he worried about Dean. He always had, but Dean never let him help. Sam sighed and turned his eyes to his mother. She did not look mad. Of course, she rarely looked mad at Dean when he would act like a jackass, which was plenty often lately (something Sam would not tell Dean but knew that Bobby would, although the junkman preferred to use the term 'idgit' when he did it). Sam smiled apologetically.

"When I'm 15, I promise I won't be grumpy like Dean," Sam vowed.

Mary grinned then reached over and kissed the top of his head before ruffling his hair.

"Actually, sweetie, I think you'll probably be worse," she said confidently and smiled as her voice brightened. "Now, are you ready for your big trip in the morning?"

"Uh huh," Sam nodded eagerly as he beamed with excitement. "I'm all packed, and I went over Bobby's list twice. Plus, I read all the books he and Dad gave me at Christmas. I know everything I need to know about the woods and hiking and First Aid. I'm all set. Go ahead. Ask me anything about our trip, and I bet I can answer it."

Mary sighed and pet his face.

"How am I going to get along without you and your brother here with me?" she asked with a sorrowful sound.

Sam grimaced. Their father was okay with the boys going with Bobby—he had planned on joining them until just this week when his work schedule changed due to one of the mechanics getting hurt in an accident. It was their mother that was not sold on the camping trip being a great idea. Sam did not mind what Dean called their mother's 'hovering.' Having a Mom to do that felt nice, normal and comforting. For some reason, it made Dean uneasy. Bobby said it was a form of fear—that Dean still did not trust their good fortune at finding their family so he held on to the fear he would lose them somehow. Sam didn't see how that was possible. Mom and Dad were definitely keeping them. Sam figured it was more likely that Dean was just used to not having anyone watch him or care about what he did. Sam was used to it. Dean always watched out for his little brother. Whether it was in the dirty and cold homes run by the mean foster parents or the dirty and cold orphanages run by the pedophiles, Dean always seemed to watch out for his brother, so Sam always had a hovering parent in Dean. It was only recently that Sam was staring to realize that, in his memory, his big brother never had anyone like that looking out for him. No one other than Sam ever seemed to care what happened to Dean until their father found them in Chicago a year earlier.

Realizations like this, the way a family behaved and needed each other, were coming to Sam more and more lately. He didn't know if it was simply the fact that he was growing up or that he had a complete family to observe now. For example, until his mother asked him her sad question, it never occurred to Sam that letting them leave (even if it was with Bobby for just a few days) might scare her.

"You'll be okay," Sam assured her quickly with a hug. "We won't be gone long, and you'll have Dad here so you won't be lonely. Plus, all our stuff is still here so it won't really be like we're gone at all."

Sam didn't know what he said that did it, but Mary's eyes suddenly filled with tears. She held him tightly for several moments longer than he expected. She then kissed the top of his head before leaving the room without another word. He was puzzled by her reaction and made a mental note to ask Dean about it later. Sam might be good at pleasing people and making sure they liked him, but Dean seemed to understand people more (even though he seemed to piss them off a lot).

**oOoOoOo**

After finishing the lawn, Dean rode his bike to the Salvage Yard a mile up the road to get away from the house as he was even angrier when he finished the lawn than when he started. That might have something to do with getting stung by a wasp or just being pissed that he got stuck mowing the stupid lawn when he felt certain it could wait a few more days. He launched into that diatribe with Bobby only to have the junkman turn a hose on him with a terse growl to grow up and cool off.

Two hours later, Dean stood in the doorway to Sam's room. The radiant orange walls made the heat of the room seem 10 degrees hotter. Dean scoffed and threw a balled up note left on his bed by his brother. The page bounced off the young boy's head from where he sat on his bed reading another of his wilderness books.

"Hey," Sam grumbled a picked the projectile off the floor. "I just left you the note to remind you…"

"I'm not an idiot, Sam," Dean said. "I know I need to set my alarm and make sure my bag is packed. What did you really want?"

Sam chewed his lip and blushed at his subterfuge being so apparent to his brother. Not that it really surprised him. Dean seemed to understand him better than anyone, always had. Sam just didn't want to put into writing what he really needed to talk to Dean about in case someone else saw the note. Sam was worried. His mother's odd reaction earlier and how quiet she was during dinner made his stomach flutter. Sam ate alone with her after Dean took off for Bobby's when he finished the lawn. The quiet and tense meal bothered Sam. He told his big brother about it and his conversation with their mother in the hopes that Dean could tell him that nothing was wrong.

Only, that's not what happened.

"You said what?" Dean groaned and tossed a filthy look at his little brother. "Smooth, Sammy. And you call me a jerk?"

"What?" Sam shrugged as he slid off his bed and started to follow Dean down the hall. "What's the problem? What I said is true. Dad is going to be here with her, and all our stuff will still be in our rooms. I wasn't wrong. Hey, where are you going? Dean?"

Dean held up his hand to halt his brother's pursuit. Dean then huffed and trotted quietly down the stairs. The ground floor was quiet and devoid of life as he made his way through the living room and into the kitchen. From the window over the sink, he spied his mother sitting in a chair near the garden staring out at the scraggly meadow that stretched to the far tree line. The sun was just dipping below the horizon.

Dean sighed and slipped out of the house, dragging his feet on the carpet of freshly mowed grass to let her know he was approaching. His mother had a sixth sense when anyone came near her, but it was always best to announce yourself Dean learned because if you did manage to startle her she went into ninja mode (which he thought was kind of cool); he was still looking for the right moment to ask about that.

"Did Dad call?" Dean asked as he approached her chair. It was not odd for John to work late at the garage, but he usually notified them when that would happen. The Impala was still not in the driveway.

Mary looked up with her eyes appearing slightly red and puffy. He hated knowing his mother could and did cry. It did not happen often, but whenever it did, it made him feel guilty, like he should have known it might happen and done something to prevent it. The desire to fix the problem before it drew tears from her was always strong in him.

"Yeah, a little while ago," she said smiling and answering in a soft voice. "He had to finish the last rush job. He should be home soon. I think it's safe to say that he and the other guys at the garage are going to let the owner know this new policy of 'same day repairs' isn't wise when you don't know what repairs are going to arrive for the day."

Dean nodded and settled on the grass beside her chair, sitting with his legs folded and his elbows resting on his knees. It had been a dry season so far. Mosquitoes were absent and only crickets filled the field. He paused for a few moments. There was no point in asking if she was bothered by Sam's comment still. Her eyes told that story. He didn't blame his kid brother for not understanding, but it amazed him how someone as smart and amiable as Sam could make such a bonehead blunder in the first place.

"It is just a camping trip," Dean said, lifting his eyes to look at her profile. "We'll be with Bobby the whole time. Me and Sammy will be home before you miss us that much."

"No, you won't," she replied and turned a sad smile to him. "I trust Bobby, but I will miss both you and your brother the second you leave the house."

Dean swallowed dryly as he nodded his understanding. He had worried about this, even had talked to his father and Bobby about it. When they first began planning this excursion, Dean offered to stay behind. At that time, it was going to be Bobby, his dad, him and Sam on the trip. Dean actually wasn't all that interested in camping. This was Sammy's deal. The kid was eager and excited. Dean thought it might be fun, but he could find other things to keep him entertained during his summer vacation that didn't include taking a piss in the woods and trying to avoid running into Big Foot (which his father assured Sam a dozen times did not exist).

Dean also did not like the idea of leaving his mother alone during this trip. It surprised him that his father and Sam weren't more bothered by it (or more precisely, were not bothered by it at all). So, it made Dean less keen on going, but once his dad had to bail due to the garage being short-handed, Dean knew he couldn't back out. He trusted Bobby implicitly, had since nearly the first day they met, but he couldn't leave Sam alone like that. At least if their Dad was going, his little brother would have had enough people watching out for him. Two grown and responsible men who cared for the little guy was a fair substitute for one big brother, Dean figured. After all, his Dad was a former Marine and Bobby was tough as nails, plus he was a hunter of some sort (Dean had overheard a few of his out of town friends say something about it earlier in the year). But when Dad's plans changed, Dean knew his place was watching out for Sam. Old habits, like looking out for his baby brother, didn't disappear just because they had a real family now.

"We'll be back," he promised. "You know that, right?"

She looked at him with misty eyes but said nothing. The look pained Dean in ways he could not describe.

"Any chance you'll miss us enough to not make us eat lima beans or broccoli when we get back on Monday night?" Dean asked with a grin. Mary's smile became a little less sorrowful as he joked. "I'm just saying, absence and fondness; there are a lot of ways to show your appreciation, Mom."

She reached out and cupped his cheek lovingly and sighed.

"You're entirely too sweet to be a smart ass so regularly," she said. "Is that why you came out here, Dean? To make me feel better?"

"Who?" he scoffed. "Me? Nah. I'm just…. Uh… well…" He nodded and shrugged. "Yeah. Sammy said you were, you know…"

Dean looked sincerely back at her. His relationship with his mother surely appeared like one of extremes to an outside observer. They did a fair amount of verbal sparring over the chores she gave him and her expectations of him. There was sometimes shouting in the process. Other times, she could sit peaceably beside him and neither would say a word or feel the need to speak, and it could feel like the best moments of the day for both of them. In truth, Dean never got mad at her, and he felt certain she never got mad with him. There were moments of frustration but never real anger. His greatest fear, anytime he made a mistake, was not of the punishment she might dole out but in the disappointment she might feel because of him.

"I'll be fine, honey," she assured him. "I'll just be a little lonely without the two of you making noise in the house. Who am I going to talk to when I feel that night owl urge?"

Dean grinned. He and his mother were both late night people. For as long as he could remember, he simply could not fall asleep at early hours. No matter how tired he was, sleep before midnight just did not come naturally. Mary was the same way. It was during one of her night episodes of prowling the house a few weeks after they moved in the previous summer that she peaked into her oldest son's room and found his bed empty. A small jolt of fear struck her in the chest until she located him sitting on the back stoop watching the fireflies in the meadow.

That was when they began their late night talks. At first, Mary only asked him about Sam, figuring it was a safe and preferred subject for Dean. There was much he could say. He knew she wanted to learn about their lives when they first returned and settled into a family existence. He was glad to tell her about his baby brother. After a while, he grew curious and asked her about herself. She was his mother, but other than a few hazy memories, he knew nothing about her. She told him about her life growing up, how her family traveled a lot (her father was an exterminator and his company moved them a lot, she said). For that reason, she did not have many friends for long because of it and felt loneliness in a way Dean could understand. Her stories were not detailed and did not precisely paint a picture well enough that he could tell anyone about his family or its history, but it was the start of learning to talk to the woman as his mother and not as a strange lady who wanted to be called Mom.

A year later, their chats were more about present day events and future plans. She was adamant that he would go on to college and do something exciting with his life. Dean often fell silent when she started that topic. He felt a little overwhelmed and awed by her confidence that he could do it. He did not believe in himself nearly as much as she did. Still, despite that awkward subject, his relationship with her was easy and natural. It was not always so with his father. He certainly got along well with John once he learned the man's rules and tolerances, but there was always a bit of a wall between them. John was a former Marine who like rules, his rules specifically. He was the head of the family. Dean did not dispute that (directly), but dropping the responsibility of being Sam's caretaker and bodyguard was not something he could do like flipping a switch.

Regardless of the chest thumping scenes that played out between him and his father initially, there was never that level of friction with Mary. Dean would, nearly always, bend to her will (or profusely apologize for not doing so while offering what he considered a good excuse). He had a weakness for her that he did not understand completely. While he and his brother were lost, he missed both of his parents but for some reason Mary was the one he embraced as a parent first once he accepted they were his family.

For that reason, Dean hated when she looked sad or upset. In that instant, the sadness in her face and voice reminded him that the immediate future probably looked empty to her, or worse, looked a bit like her desperate past. This was not merely a bout of empty nest blues. This was her nightmare in rerun, or so it probably seemed on the surface. Those thoughts brought another issue to his mind.

"Well, call me crazy, but if you are looking for someone to talk to while we're on vacation, you have this guy who lives here and calls himself your husband," Dean suggested. "I wouldn't say he's really great at the whole talking thing. And, let's be honest, he's probably not much good with charming the ladies, but you did marry him for some reason. Any idea what that was?"

Mary chuckled and tweaked his cheek lightly, making him smile and blush. Her eyes feasted on him, as she did to both her children anytime she got to spend focused time with them. They were handsome boys, different in looks but with the same streak of sweetness in them. Dean was visually an interesting mix of she and her husband. He had his father's dark hair and was stretching toward his height, but he had Mary's pale complexion and light eyes. Sam resembled more her side of the family. He had her mother's soulful eyes and her father's chin, but he laughed like her and smiled like John.

"Well, it was the '70's," she chided, knowing he would if she didn't. "Who can remember that far back?"

"Good point," Dean nodded but opted not to continue to joke with her as he felt this was a serious matter. "You think maybe you should find out?"

Mary looked at him with widening eyes and a questioning expression. She was often surprised when her oldest son became insightful without warning. It was not that she doubted he was that clever, it was just that he gave no sign when those moments would occur. He would go from sarcasm to thoughtful in the same breath. Dean had an innate sense about people and their motivations, as if he could see into them, past their bluster and armor. Whether that was because kept himself shielded in both so much himself or he was simply a better listener and observer than most people gave him credit for, she did not know. Still, each time he did it, it caught her off guard. Dean spent a fair amount of time being a typical moody teenager with biting comments and cranky attitude, but he could so quickly cut to the heart of a matter with such sincerity it would often leave her speechless.

"Not to get you all upset again, but there's going to come a day in a few years when Sam and I don't live here," Dean said carefully. "I'll be off doing grown up things. Sam will be at Harvard or whatever egghead school he chooses. We'll still visit and call and everything, but you and Dad need lives too that aren't just about hovering over me and Sammy. If you don't figure that out now…"

"Dean, sweetie, don't worry about me and your father," she said quickly, although her stomach knotted as he hit on one of her other major concerns about her sons being gone for the long weekend. "We're fine."

"When Sam and I were gone, you and Dad weren't together," Dean said with a sullen echo in his words.

It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact.

Mary never told him about their decade long estrangement. She was certain John never did either. How he knew was a mystery and not precisely relevant to the topic. She wondered how much he recalled of his youngest days. Both before and after Sam's birth, she and John went through a rough patch. There was a lot of yelling in the house, shouting that either sent Dean hiding behind the couch covering his ears not to hear, or throwing himself between his shouting parents telling them to stop. John even moved out for a few days in the month before the boys disappeared. Seeing Dean's wide, green eyes meet hers with a childlike worry so much younger than his 15 years made Mary's heart clench and raised tears in her eyes again.

"You didn't have us around to give you something in common so you stayed apart, probably mad at each other because of everything that was happening," Dean continued, his voice remaining even but sounding hesitant and wary. "I get that things were rough because we were gone. But me and Sam, we're going to be gone again someday—like with notice and easy to locate addresses and stuff. If you and Dad don't have any reason to be together when we're not around…"

"Oh Dean," she sighed and pet his face again lovingly. She felt his skin burn with a blush under her touch. "Honey, you don't need to worry about that. Everything's okay."

"I'm just saying," he continued awkwardly, "Sammy is kind of a girl about this whole happy family stuff. It's like he read too many fairy tales about happily-ever-after or watched 'Family Ties' and the 'Cosby Show' too much. If you guys get divorced because you don't know who you are other than our wardens and chauffeurs and short order cooks, then Sam will fall apart."

"It would bother _Sam_ a lot, huh?" Mary inquired, looking at him deeply and reading through his blocking and bluster with ease.

"Yeah," Dean nodded. "I mean, the kid cries at that old coffee commercial about the guy coming home for Christmas to surprise his family. You owe it to the squirt to make an effort not to get divorced out of boredom or lack of interest in being married anymore."

"Okay, baby," she agreed. "We'll see what your father and I can do to avoid upsetting _Sam_ worse than a 20-year-old Folger's commercial."

"Good," he relaxed. "'Cause this weekend is a prime opportunity for you two to… do… whatever. Have fun and crap like that. Just promise me we won't be getting a baby sister or anything next winter. First off, you're like way too old to be punching out a baby."

"I'm not 40 yet," she said sternly.

"You're close and that's like ancient," he insisted. "Next, I claim the winter as mine. You, who was born in during the summer, does not understand how badly it sucks having a birthday in January. Everyone has a cold so they make you sick on your birthday. Next, it's like right after Christmas so the whole getting a gift thing seems greedy. Oh, and not to mention the day is like the shortest in the whole year so I get colossally screwed from that. The least you could do is leave me as the only one in the family with a birthday during that season and not make anyone else suffer such a cruel and wicked fate."

"Cruel and wicked?" she repeated.

"I stand by that," Dean nodded deftly.

Mary chuckled and shook her head. Dean's rambling rants were entertaining and all the evidence she needed that her oldest was not the intellectual slouch he pretended to be so often. Dean was quick and clever. He simply did not place much value in most of his academics. Unless the class had a lab or a practical application, he paid it little attention. Next, the cheek on him spoke of a colorful character with a desperately tender heart, one she recognized from his earliest days. She remained amazed it had survived so many years not being cared for and loved the way he deserved.

"No new babies," she nodded then leaned over and kissed his head. "Check. Maybe we'll just do something safe like go skydiving."

Dean blanched at the thought, swallowing hard as he grew pale in the shimmering moonrise.

"I didn't say you could do anything crazy or suicidal," he worried, prompting her to chuckle harder before shoeing him back toward the house for an early bedtime in preparation for the next day's journey.

It had been many years since Mary looked towards the heavens and offered up a wish or a prayer. She ceased doing that when her sons were taken, but on a whim and with a flutter in her chest, she turned her eyes skywards and spoke with heart as she asked a god she was still unsure she believed in to keep her boys safe and return them to her in a few days time. She watched the stars for a moment with a childish desire to see a flicker of a star or some sign she was heard.

There was none.

**oOoOoOo**

**A/N: **More to come. The trouble starts soon.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes:** Reviews appreciated. Thanks to Wholives4Eva. You always come through.

* * *

**oOoOoOo**

Morning arrived cool and dark. The Winchester boys rolled out of bed and into the kitchen, where Mary nervously served breakfast. Sam picked at his while throwing excited glances at the clock. Meanwhile, yawned and Dean nearly fell asleep in his eggs as he slouched at the table and worked hard to keep his eyelids pried open. At the designated time, still an hour before the sun would rise, John prompted them to say their goodbyes to their mother. He gave them privacy to do so as he trudged to the car, telling them to make it quick because they needed to get moving. Sam's hug was tight, grinning and brief as he accepted a trembling peck on the cheek before darting out the door.

Dean hung back as his little brother raced out the door. Dean felt a lump in his sleepy throat as Mary hugged him tightly too and trembled. He wanted to say something witty and funny so that he could leave knowing she was smiling and he made her laugh, except nothing like that came to mind as he saw the tears hiding in her normally bright eyes.

"I promise you I'll bring him back," Dean said, trying to sound gruff, confident and reassuring, but he only managed to sound tense and concerned. "Can't say without a scratch. It's the woods. Scratches probably just happen—like mosquito bites."

"Watch out for him and yourself," Mary said in a thin voice as she forced a smile on her face. "I'll see you in a few days, baby. Have fun."

"You, too," Dean replied. "That John guy, I think he's got a thing for you, you know?"

A slightly naught glint flashed in his sleepy eyes as he grinned and waved to her. Her heart clenched, seeing not her 15-year-old son in the innocent gesture. Instead, she saw a four-year-old boy who had waved excitedly to her as he would go on an adventure with his father to the hardware store on a Saturday afternoon to give her a few moments of peace in the house. She waved in return and waited until the lights of the Impala were at the end of the driveway before letting the terribly cold and vicious stab of fear in her chest drop her to her knees. She buried her face in her hands and wept the tears she held in all night as sleep was chased from her by the unrelenting dreams that left her feeling cold, alone and grief-stricken.

**oOoOoOo**

Arriving at the salvage yard, John grabbed his sons' bags from the trunk of the Impala and placed them in the back of Bobby's already packed truck. With a practiced and schooled eye, he surveyed the equipment and nodded his approval. There was a suitable tent, waterproof sleeping bags, a professional looking pack on a sturdy aluminum frame that was outfitted with several visible survival tools. John knew that Bobby understood the woods and survival techniques. The man could probably live for a month in the woods with just a knife, a paperclip and length of string. His sons were in good hands.

He also knew the boys were equipped with their own Swiss Army knives and survivalist knives (the kind worn on the belt and that had a straight edge to one side and a serrated edge to the other; the sturdy hilts were topped with a compass but were hollow inside to hold waterproof matches, fishing line and hooks). He had made sure they each brought proper clothing (knowing Sam was likely to try and bring everything he owned, and Dean was more likely to just be interested in making sure he had sunglasses with him). They were set with necessities. They were also not the fragile waifs his wife saw when she looked at them. Sam and Dean were strong, reasonably tough and adaptable kids. They would do fine in the woods. John's faith in them was solid.

He just hoped they would take the trek seriously. What he saw before him did not inspire confidence.

"Quit it!" Sam shouted and flailed his arm at his brother and slapped away his hand, which kept trailing toward the younger boy's ear to imitate a spider crawling up the Sam's neck. "I mean it, Dean! Knock it off."

"Getting a little jumping about a teeny bug there, Sammy," Dean chuckled. "I was just brushing one off you. If you're afraid of insects, maybe you should stay home."

"Maybe you should," Sam growled.

"Maybe you both should and I can go find some peace and quiet in the woods with Bobby," John's voice rumbled over them in a warning that made both stand up straighter and take a step away from each other with the implied warning.

John considered it a moderate parental victory that a sarcastic comment (no doubt something involving the movie Deliverance) did not cross Dean's lips, although John did see the eagerness to say it flash there ever so briefly.

"That's what I thought," John nodded as they tromped into the house to find Bobby finishing his coffee and looking as though he had been up for hours.

"Everyone ready?" the junkman asked and received a confident nod from Sam, an unconvincing shrug from Dean and a mighty sigh from John.

Dean leaned on the door frame and yawned his lack of enthusiasm until he heard the jingling sound. Bobby held a set of car keys out to him. Dean's eyes snapped awake quickly and grew wide with a dazzling sparkle of anticipation.

"Really?" Dean asked with awe. "You're not just screwing with me?"

"Your Daddy said it was okay for you to drive if you keep it at or under the speed limit," Bobby nodded. Dean snatched away the keys and raised them in his fist in victory before turning back and grinning widely at the owner of the pickup then gave him a brief and brusque hug.

"Have I told you lately that you are awesome, Bobby?" Dean wondered as he stepped back and twirled the keys like they were a six-shooter. "Old man, I think I love you."

John sighed and fixed his son with a flat stare. John's reaction was simple and selfish. Dean's exuberance was understandable. He knew how to drive, but with John and Mary sharing a single car, the kid's opportunities to do so were limited. He and Dean were going to start working on a car, rebuilding one, that summer so that when Dean turned 16 and got his license the next year he could drive it. Until then, any opportunity to drive was Dean's idea of heaven. His praise of Bobby did pain John somewhat. Certainly, the teen was letting Bobby know his gratitude, but what grated on John was the way the kid said those last three words with such easy to the man.

There was no doubt in John's mind that Dean loved his father, but it was a strained affection at times. Dean was wary of showing the sentiment to anyone other than his mother and brother. John felt his oldest son had an unhealthy independent streak, acting as though no one would help him or take care of him. Dean spent many years in the self-appointed duty of taking care of his little brother (and muddling through taking care of himself in the process when there was time or energy left over to be spent). Handing the reins of Sam's care over to his parents, who were then strangers, made for a difficult and at times contentious adjustment. Since John and Mary became full-time forces in their sons' lives again, the teenager had abdicated much of his sovereign attitude over Sam in favor of merely a more typical surly, put-upon teenage grouchiness. After talking with coworkers at the garage, John knew those with daughters had it much worse.

While John and his firstborn had formed a solid bond (a love of sports and Dean's budding fascination with cars), John still sensed an immense emotional gulf between them. They had a hard time showing affection for one another in normal circumstances. While the kid had no trouble giving and receiving affection from his mother, John felt awkward even giving the boy a hug when the teen did something impressive, like when he hit a homerun to win the final game for his high school baseball team a two weeks earlier. The coach and players mauled Dean with fierce embraces as he crossed home plate, but John hesitated when his chance came. He balked, freezing mid-reach and simply ended up patting the boy on the shoulder. Dean looked at him with his typically enigmatic expression—the one that said he felt something keenly but what that 'it' was precisely was unclear: grateful thanks for John not invading his personal space or the pinch of rejection. Mary, perturbed at what she observed, tersely ordered him to shelve the surly man-code if that was what forbid close personal moments between them.

The truth of the matter was simpler and rooted in simple fear. John accidently hurt his boy when he first found him the previous year. Initially, he scared his son so badly that Dean bolted from him, running into traffic that resulted in him getting hit by a car. Next, to deal with boy's pent up anger, he took Dean outside to spar and burn off his volcanic and disrespectful attitude. A simple ill-placed block landed Dean in emergency surgery with a ruptured spleen. Since then, John felt an awkwardness in their physical proximity. Dean, either sensing the apprehension or sharing it, kept his physical distance as well.

Thankfully, Sam was easier. He was younger and more willing to have what his brother scathingly called "chick-flick" moments. Sam was barely 10 when he came home, a little boy in need of parents and eager to finally have them. He was sweet and affectionate with no teenage need to look cool and play aloof to maintain that image. He could question the shit out of any discussion and seemed to take nothing at face value, always needing to know the intricate 'why's' behind everything, but he was more open with his feelings. Although John was not overly skilled at heart-to-heart discussions, he found Sam's need to dissect everything in an effort to understand people and events an easier (if at times aggravating) way to deal with those moments. His sons had stridently different personalities, different to the point one might question if they were raised together at all. While John understood Dean better, he oddly found it easier to parent Sam much of the time. Dean had issues with authority. He certainly accepted his parents and rarely defied them, but he would grumble and grouse when told to do chores or his homework. Sam never needed instruction or coaxing in those areas.

"Looks like we're ready to roll," Bobby said, spying the distant look in John's eye. The comment snapped John out of his internal musing and was quickly followed by a quip from his oldest.

"Any final lecture, _sir_?" Dean asked with a playful grin.

John sighed as he folded his arms and regarded the teen with a stern but mildly amused expression.

"Have fun but behave," he said gruffly. "Keep alert and listen to Bobby."

"Right," Dean nodded. "Don't feed the bears because they prevent forest fires." He snapped a mocking salute as he nodded and loped out of the house toward the truck, twirling the keys in a giddy fashion.

"I can leave the smart ass here for a weekend of boot camp," Bobby offered with a glower at the departing teen. "I won't be heartbroken by his absence."

Sam looked cautiously, pleadingly, to his father, not fully confident in Bobby's sarcasm. John saw the worry in his youngest son's eyes and shook his head. He placed a large, calloused palm on the boy's shoulder.

"I know Dean watches out for you normally, but you need to do the same for him this weekend," John told the boy. "Can you do that?"

"I will," Sam grinned broadly, proud of both his father's confidence in him and being treated as something other than a child. "I read everything you and Bobby gave me."

"I know you did," John's gravelly voice rumbled as he ruffled Sam's hair and accepted a tight hug around his middle from the boy. Sam then charged out of the kitchen in pursuit of his brother, who already had the engine running and the music blaring to shatter the early morning peaceful darkness. John turned to Bobby with eyes that held an equal mixture of caution and resignation.

"I know it goes without saying, but…," John began.

"Like they were my own," Bobby cut him off with his vow to watch over the boys. "Don't worry about us. You and Mary enjoy a couple days of quiet while I march Tweedle Dee and Tweedle I-Fake-Dumb up a mountainside. I'll bring 'em back in working order."

John nodded, accepting the promise and believing it. Bobby loved the boys like they were his kin—maybe more so as he never seemed to tire of them, despite his penchant for grumbling about them and calling them idgits.

"Mary and I will be checking your messages in case anyone is looking for you," John assured the hunter.

"I put the word out that I'd be gone so no one should be flashing me the bat signal this weekend, but you can bet some of those morons didn't think I was serious," Bobby groused. "Allard and Jefferson come to mind first. I don't expect you to run off and deal with anything. Just… if there's an emergency, do what you can to look up what you need in the library. I'll check in with you once the boys and I get to the Hardy Station on the way in, and I'll call again as we leave."

John nodded and followed the man out of the house. He waved at his sons. Sam was perched on the middle of the bench seat of the old truck waving while sporting a manically happy grin. The sounds of Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog" pounded from the truck's speakers. Bobby groaned as he pulled open the passenger door. John scowled and locked eyes with the driver.

"That better not be one of my CD's," John shouted.

He knew his voice was lost in the wave of sound as Dean merely jutted his chin out to him in a subtle and arrogantly cool motion. John signaled tersely with his finger pointing at the ground for the boy to turn down the volume of the radio speakers from their ear-splitting levels. Dean visibly scoffed and rolled his eyes, but the noise shaking the windows lessened. Bobby touched the brim of his grimy truckers cap and the truck rattled out of the yard. The glow of the tail lights disappeared moments later, and John shivered as a cold knot settled into his stomach.

He trotted down the sagging steps of the front porch and got into his car. The throaty growl of the Impala steadied his nerves as the tires crunched on the gravel. Inside the ramshackle dwelling, the trill of the phone went unheard and unanswered. The caller hung up. The phone rang again a few minutes later with the same effect. On the third attempt, the caller reluctantly spoke to the machine.

"Bobby Singer, we should speak," the man's voice, obviously one of native descent, said. "This is Summer Proudfoot. The wind carried many messages to me last night. One, I believe, is for you. An old evil awakened and prowls for innocent travelers. Stay where you are safe and do not come to this place, or I fear that you and the lambs who accompany you will be slaughtered."

**oOoOoOo**

As the lunch hour approached, Mary stepped into the librarian's office behind the sign-out desk and stared the phone. The light holding the call blinked. When her boss told her that her husband was on the phone, her heart started to race. John never called her at work. Ever. Her stomach flipped with momentary worry.

"John?" she answered, hearing the crack in her voice as she strained to keep her tone hushed.

"Everything is fine," he said instantly. "I just wanted to let you know that Bobby already checked in with me. They made good time getting to the ranger's station—apparently the detour he thought they needed to take for road construction wasn't necessary. They're already hiking."

"Oh," she sighed, letting her knees buckle as she dropped gratefully into the desk chair. "Thank god."

"I didn't mean to scare you," he apologized. "I just didn't see a need for you to spend any more time wondering. According to Bobby, Dean was good with the drive and even stuck to the speed limit… mostly. The boys hadn't started squabbling with each other even. Long may that last."

Mary nodded. In her mind, she was saying a quick prayer of thanks for the simple update. The idea of her children, once again, being anywhere out of her immediate reach remained unsettling.

"So, since I'm working tomorrow, I've got the afternoon off," John replied cautiously. "I'll see you at home in a little while."

"Okay," she said automatically and cringed as she looked at the clock, knowing she would be home in an hour as well.

John heard the hesitation in her voice and tried to not read too much into it as he disconnected. But, if he was going to be brutally honest with himself, the thought of being completely alone with his wife was daunting. That awkward feeling made him nearly as uneasy as the absence of his sons. From his wife's shaky and nervous reply, she was feeling the same way.

This weekend without their children was nerve wrecking to John for two reasons. The first was obvious: his sons were away. He wanted to be with them. This trip was supposed to be their first father and sons outing. He did things with the boys when time and money permitted it, but mostly those things were events in town. He and his wife took their sons out for pizza once in a while (when money wasn't too scarce). Twice the previous summer, he took them to see baseball games at The Birdcage, the stadium where the Sioux Falls Canaries of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball League played. The previous winter they hiked into the woods and cut down a Christmas tree. The two hour jaunt had been tiring as there was nearly two feet of snow on the ground and Sam kept changing his mind over which tree he wanted. While those were great memories and quality time with his boys, it wasn't the same as going someplace faraway with them to teach them something he knew: roughing it in the wilderness. John knew Bobby was a good woodsman and would look after his sons, but that wasn't what was bothering him. It was the fact that his boys were, yet again, doing something for the first time without him.

Sam learned to walk, to speak and to ride a bike without John being around. He got his first haircut and lost his first tooth without John knowing of it. So much of the boy's life, those milestones that John recalled from Dean's childhood, were out of reach. This camping trip was something Sam asked him to do. It was Sam's belated birthday gift and John was, yet again, denied the pleasure of it. And Dean, well, it was another missed opportunity to help further crack the enigmatic code of his oldest—that carefully constructed wall that only let John see precisely what Dean cared to show him (but usually left John quite certain there was much more there he needed to know).

But, because of an unavoidable obligation at his job, John was stuck at home and would be forced to face a fear of his. While his wife worried about their sons being away from their protective eyes, what worried John more was being alone with the woman he once loved more than his next breath but who now seemed more like a business partner.

Or, more precisely, he would be alone the woman he still loved more than his next breath but who treated him like her business partner.

Dean, John realized, was a great deal like his mother. He inherited his closed expressions and tightly controlled maze of emotions from her. Mary had a façade which most people would look at and judge quickly, thinking they knew who she was and what she was thinking. John knew differently. His wife was a black belt in keeping secrets; she was a master at hiding how she truly felt and only let those she trusted most know the truth and only when she was damn good and ready (or when she was left with no choice). She had him fooled for years, hiding her past as a hunter and the secrets her family knew about what lurked in the dark. So it left John wondering if this amicable existence they had now was just another front, a fanciful story told to hide something darker or more painful.

They lived under the same roof and shared the same bed even, but he could not say their personal relationship was anything other than sterile. Their bed may as well have been mile wide for all the contact they had while in it. The only thing he knew for certain that they shared any longer was a love of their children. How they felt about each other and whether they were just together for the boys' sake was not a subject that ever came up.

Until now.

**oOoOoOo**

Sam's legs burned with the exertion of his muscles, and it made him smile. They had been hiking for what felt like an entire day even though he knew could not have been more than three hours. They were nearing the mark on his map for their campsite. It was not at the top of the mountain—more like mid-way up in a valley nestled between peaks where the land was still heavily forested and there was a nearby stream for fishing. Sam had dreamed about the location for months. The memory of those images drew a deeper grin on his face and kept his legs moving.

The same could not be said for his brother. Dean had walked further ahead as Sam had paused. Bobby was a few yards back just off the trail relieving himself. Sam picked up his pace to locate Dean. When he did, he spied his older brother sitting on a downed tree eating a chocolate Poptart from a newly opened package. Sam growled as he stormed forward

"You brought your own food?" Sam gaped. "We're supposed to be roughing it, Dean!"

"This is roughing it," he scoffed through his full mouth. "Cold Poptart, dude. It's friggin' uncivilized. Now, if you want to live off the land alone, go ahead. Just don't be surprised if what Bobby brings back today makes you sick."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, staring at his brother with his skeptical eyes.

"Sam, this is Bobby we're talking about," Dean offered with a chuckle. "The guy would probably chew the ass off a live beaver if you put ketchup on it. Then again…"

"What?" Sam asked, trying not to laugh or cringe at his brother's prediction about their likely dinner.

"Ask yourself this," Dean said. "You ever seen anything in his refrigerator that didn't come out of a grocery store? I know I heard one of his buddies call him a hunter, but I've never seen any proof the guy has killed anything. Have you?"

Sam thought about it then shrugged. Bobby growled a lot—particularly at anything with the last name Winchester—but he was not a violent man or even a mean one. He was grouchy and crusty, like Sam's father only with a full beard, a trucker's cap and way more books. Oh, and he had a little bit more patience for Dean and Sam. Their father had gotten loads better at not shouting or freaking out anytime they started to mess around with each other, but Bobby never seemed to mind it from the start. Sam knew his brother adored Bobby as much as their parents (and sometimes a bit more because Dean just seemed to trust Bobby the moment they met). Sam thought the world of their neighbor as well and called him Uncle Bobby (rather than just Bobby like Dean did) because Sam wanted him to know that he too thought of the man as family. Sam felt sure Bobby would find their food as he returned a hard look at his brother's confident expression.

Well, like 90 percent sure. Dean's smirk and following comment made that 10 percent doubt sting.

"Maybe he sucks at hunting and now you're gonna starve because you didn't plan ahead," Dean challenged jostling his bag to reveal the telltale sound of peanut M&M's rattling inside.

"You finished?" Bobby asked, suddenly appearing through the trees beside Dean. Sam chuckled as his brother jumped and stumbled sideways into a tree.

Dean shot Sam a hard glare while rubbing a sore spot on his shoulder where he had collided with the tree.

"We got a few more miles to cover before we set up camp and then we gotta scare up our dinner," Bobby continued.

"I'm ready," Sam nodded eagerly and pulled tight the straps on his pack.

"There's a large dam in the stream on the way," Bobby began as they started up a new trail to their left. "If I see its populated by some critters with really plump cans, we'll need to take a break so I can grab myself a snack." He then slapped Dean lightly at the back of his noggin. "Now, get movin,' Chucklehead, before I put ketchup on you and take a bite."

Sam's laughter filled the woods as he practically skipped ahead, following the needle of his compass. Dean grumbled under his breath, mumbling a few choice words about his brother and their guide. Bobby heard every syllable but did correct him or directly scold the teen for it. The boy's father would do that and Bobby was a lot of things that were paternal in nature to these boys, but he did not have John's need for such rigid approaches to respect. He let Dean complain and speak in a salty manner up to a point. He noted that the kid was tapering off that a great deal in recent months. The hunter figured part of that was because he chose to ignore Dean's language. Take away its power by ignoring t. Instead, Bobby took a different approach and went at the attitude behind the words rather than the words used.

"You bitch enough to be an old grandmother," Bobby observed.

"And you creak and groan enough to be an old rocking chair," Dean replied. "It's no wonder we get along so well."

"Keep walking," Bobby growled and received a toothy and unconcerned grin from the teen in return. Under his beard the cragged hunter fought a smirk.

They trudged forward with Bobby becoming acutely aware of the sounds around them—or more precisely, the sounds he did not hear. At first, he did not pay the quiet much attention. The boys were loud hikers, crashing through the underbrush without any care or concern for disturbing the indigenous life that called the forest home. They snapped branches back at each other, scuffed their feet through duff (the remnants of leaves and pine needles dried up from the previous year that carpeted the floor and made for great tinder to light the place ablaze if there was a careless camper or a well-placed lightning strike). They also talked both to and at each other, arguing and egging each other on while turning to Bobby to play referee occasionally.

That was enough to send any critter used to the normal quiet and peace of the trees scurrying for cover far from them, but Bobby's senses were tingling. He found his eyes scanning not just the floor of the forest but also the trees in areas much higher than a normal man might reach. If the boys had asked, he had his reason ready: Bears. He saw a few marks that might be from actual bear claws, but he couldn't be sure. The canopy above them was thick and did not let in much light. Whether the marks were actual drags marks in bark was a mystery as was what might have caused them. There were a lot of options, and a few put his hunter radar on high as he checked the breach of his rifle once again to make sure it was in the unlocked and loaded position.

"Any chance you'll let me carry that?" Dean asked, catching Bobby checking his weapon.

"My gun?" the older man's face twisted in surprise. "Just what makes you think I'd trust you with a gun?"

"Well, you and my dad taught me to shoot this spring," Dean shrugged. "You let me sight in all your guns because you said I have a good eye and I'm a natural at hitting targets."

"I also say you're an idgit," Bobby countered.

"But you always say it with such pride and warmth," the teen offered, smiling knowingly with his eyes. The wide, green orbs twinkled in the scarce light as his thick lashes fluttered mischievously. Bobby forced a scowl, but it did not make it to his own eyes.

"There's also the fact that I'm like way younger than you, and I'm just trying to be helpful," Dean continued. "No little old ladies to help across the street here, so I figured while I'm out here playing boy scout I should, you know…"

"Help an old man through the woods?" Bobby grounded out as he trudged onward at a quicker pace. "Save your strength. You'll need it to pull my boot out of your ass if you keep dragging your feet and asking stupid questions. Find a new gear, Dean. We've got a ways to go before we break for camp."

Dean snorted and set his jaw firmly on frown. He cast his eyes to the forest floor and walked determinedly ahead of his brother and Bobby. The hunter let the kid cool his heels. Dean's temper flares rarely lasted long anymore. They were just unpredictable. Sam watched him pass by and giggled, wisely saying nothing until he was out of Dean's reach. The 11-year-old adjusted his pack and fell in step with Bobby as Dean forged a few steps ahead grinding his teeth and scuffing his feet noisily on the ground with each step.

"Aw, he's just mad because Hope Price asked him if he wanted to go to the movies this weekend," Sam grinned as he walked with a bouncing step, thinking of the redhead who had boldly walked up to Dean outside the grocery store a week earlier while they waited for their mother to return to the car. "He had to say no so the next day Justin Sterns asked her to go instead."

"How do you know about that?" Dean snapped.

"I'm friends with Justin's sister Melinda," Sam replied. "I helped her with her with math this year. While we were doing flashcards on the last day of school, she told me."

"Who studies on the last day of school?" Dean moaned. "You are such a geek."

Sam shot a sour look at his brother and stuck out his tongue. Bobby cut his eyes at the younger boy but said nothing. Grumbling and teasing between the brothers was normal. As long as no one started screaming or swinging, they would be fine. They were getting tired, he knew. They had been up long before dawn, had driven a long way and had been hiking some rugged terrain without a break. A little spat between them was expected, but he gave Sam a warning look just to be certain. Again, the silence of the area niggled at him. His stomach fluttered a bit. It wasn't the full-on fight or flight response he felt in dicey situations, but there was definitely something not sitting right with him about this spot.

With the boys as his charges, his first instinct was to turn around and hike back to Hardy Station. He chided himself for that reaction. He decided he was letting Mary's angst about the boys being away from her reach get the better of him. She had called him the night before, speaking in hushed and sorrowful tones about wanting the boys to take the trip and have fun but still feeling so fearful that she could not sleep. Bobby did his best to assure her that he would look out for them and see that nature did not take any sizeable bites from her two angels. She had done research, just as he had, and the area chosen for the camping trip was as quiet as quiet could be. No strange occurrences in 110 years of recorded history. No odd deaths. No animal maulings. Nothing but virgin forests, crystal clear mountain streams and fresh air.

Reminding himself of that kept his feet moving forward rather than pivoting to return. If he was by himself, he knew he would not have the slightest twinge of concern about a weekend of camping in this area. His worry, he decided, was more just for being the sole responsibility for the Winchester boys. A few scraped marks on bark and too few birds in the trees were easily explained away.

Oblivious to his inner discourse, Dean proceeded to defend his attitude and explain a few things to his brother about the teenage mindset. Despite the boy's lack of concern for their surroundings, Bobby still could not get the knot in his stomach to unclench entirely. Moving forward was a good idea, he knew.

"Besides, the only movies playing in town are The Lion King and Speed," Dean scoffed and shoved his brother forward brusquely. "A cartoon or Keanu Reeves? No thanks. And another thing…"

"Dean," Bobby tried to interrupt.

"You have no idea what you're talking about, Sammy," he continued undeterred. "Hope asked me and I said no to her. Got it? She asked me, not the other way around."

"So?" Sam shrugged. "What's the difference? Either way, she's going with someone else."

"I'll tell you the difference," Dean said, his voice rising.

"Dean," Bobby tried again.

"The difference is I didn't get turned down," Dean asserted. "She did. She asked me first, which means she interested. She'll be back. Girls like it when you brush them off. Makes them chase you even more."

"You are a flat out genius about the ladies," Bobby noted flatly. "Your girlfriend told you that yet? Oh wait, I forgot. You ain't got one."

Sam laughed and grinned madly at his brother as he caught a wink from Bobby.

"Now, if we're done with educating Sam on how to get dumped and be a grade A jackass, let's pick up the pace," Bobby said.

Both boys noted the slight tension in his voice. They looked at him with questioning faces.

"Just a little too quiet around us for my liking," Bobby replied casually. "Never a good sign when it's too quiet out here. Might mean a pop up storm is coming. Can't tell under all this canopy so let's get moving so we can make it to our camp site in case the skies open up on us."

**oOoOoOo**

The afternoon crawled, like a caterpillar across a branch. It was slow, methodical and quiet. Those were eerie occurrences in the Winchester household. With two young boys, quiet and slow just never happened. The methodical was always an aim but chaos was more likely to reign. Mary sat at the kitchen table looking at her hands as her husband finished washing the plate used for his lunch. They had not spoken much since both returned home at the end of their shortened work day.

"This is… awkward," Mary said finally.

John sighed with relief and collapsed into a chair as he ran his hand roughly over his face.

"You think so, too?" he replied. "Thank god. I was worried it was just me. What is wrong with us?"

"I'm not sure," she said, running her hand through her hair. "Boredom, maybe?"

They had known each other for half of their lives and been married, at least legally, for most of that time. They'd lived under the same roof, shared the same room and slept in the same bed, for the last year. Still, there was an awkwardness to their interaction. They each felt like strangers and as though there was an audience watching them.

"I don't know why I'm so jittery," Mary said worriedly. "After 20 years of marriage, being around you shouldn't feel so… weird."

John nodded as he scoffed.

"Well, that decade apart sort of cuts a healthy chunk out of the 20 years," John shrugged. "And it's not like all the years before that were easy or blissful."

Mary grimaced. She tried not to think of the missing years. Returning to hunting when her boys disappeared was a nightmare. She did not give her husband or her marriage much thought during that time. She was focused instead on finding whatever creature took her kids and exacting revenge for what she believed were their deaths. Just like the lost years, she never allowed herself to think of the hard parts of the years that proceeded them. Diving into the sea of problems that made her marriage stormy in the weeks leading up to the fateful Halloween night when her boys were taken was like taking a dingy into maelstrom. There was no reason to willingly seek out the devastation so Mary simply hid from it.

Now, with her family restored, she realized hiding might no longer be an option. Her oldest son's concerns rang in her ears again. She had brushed off Dean's worries when he spoke them, but that was mostly because of the pangs of guilt they brought her. Dean was just a little boy when she and John struggled to hold their marriage together. In the intervening years, she had managed to forget the times she found her toddler son standing in doorways with tear-blistered eyes and a quivering lip as he listened to them shout at each other. Mary pushed back the memory that suddenly rose in her mind of her little boy asking yet again if his Daddy was coming home on the nights when John chose to stay at the garage or simply stayed at a friend's house to avoid another shouting match. Dean's promise as a toddler, during one of his father's absences, to stick with her and always love her broke her heart at the time. It pained her even more as she realized the boy, now a teenager, made her the same vow in the backyard just days earlier, letting her know that despite his claimed lack of memories of his young life, he did recall a great many things.

"I guess we owe it to the boys and ourselves to figure out what this whole 'us' thing means," Mary said nervously. "We've spent all our time getting them settled and adjusted to this life that we never…"

"Settled ourselves?" John suggested with a rueful sigh.

He scrubbed his hand over his unshaven face and hung his head. He and his wife lived as a family once again, but all of their time was spent caring for their children, getting them adjusted to family life, a new home and new schools. He and Mary had jobs and household responsibilities. There were repairs and bills and a million little, normal, everyday things that got in the way of John and Mary learning if they were a couple or just roommates. This weekend was the first time that they would be alone together in a very long time, and it was scaring the ever-living crap out of both of them.

"Did you ever…," Mary began. "I mean, we were apart, and you were on your own, did you ever find anyone else, even for a little while?"

John looked at her and feared the question. Not because he was embarrassed by his answer but because it would mean he should ask her as well. He wasn't sure he could stomach her response. He recalled with regret the loud and pointless arguments that erupted between them before the boys disappeared. He remembered with equal pain the cold and vicious exchanges during the years they suffered through the loss of their family. For the last years, he knew there were plenty of moments they each spent walking on eggshells, avoiding confrontation, for the sake of their children. Now, with no one needing a façade and no one there to act as a natural speed bump to slow down any impending argument, they were faced with the terrifying prospect of being fully honest with each other.

"There was never anyone," John replied honestly while shaking his head. "I spent all the time I could looking for clues on the boys. There were opportunities and offers, but somewhere between: Can I buy you a drink? And actually going someplace with a woman, I'd find myself talking about how I was looking for my sons. Most women aren't turned on by heartache from missing kids, I guess. I got a lot of 'you poor baby' and 'how awful's.' After a while, being hermit was just easier to take."

He paused, wondering if he could change the subject. If he didn't ask, maybe Mary wouldn't volunteer any information. Before he could act, she plunged onward with her own revelation.

"That's better than me," she said without prompting, sending John's heart clattering down into the vicinity of his feet.

"I understand," he said slowly. He knew, in that instant, if he peaked under his shirt he would see a gaping hole just over his heart where her admission had lanced mercilessly into him. Inside his chest, his heart was torn in two and hemorrhaging.

Seeing the sudden pall cross his features, Mary shook her head quickly. She reached her hand to touch his as his expression dropped and darkened. Staring at her, sitting with him in their small kitchen, he felt a twist of jealousy in his gut that someone had filled her nights and felt her sorrow while they were apart. John had met hunters; their lives were short and extreme and tragic. The men picked up women in diners and on their cases. The women hunters, he supposed, were not much different. The release from the dark world that so few realized existed and the knowledge that each day might be the last, pushed them all to seek solace anywhere and anyway they could.

"Oh, no, not that," Mary shook her head firmly. "I meant that I couldn't even stand the company of people most of the time. Anyone at all. There were days, weeks even, that I wouldn't even speak to another person unless I had to because I was on a case. I was mad at the universe and kind of thought if I wasn't saving them then people should get the hell out of my way."

"So you mean, you never…," John began, his breath filling in his chest much easier as a relieved grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Not ever?"

It was a stupid grin he knew. It wasn't even something that should make him happy. All those years she was hurting and miserable, but all that time, he realized, she was still his. She left him for revenge and vengeance, not because she hated him and blamed him for blaming her (something he never actually did but her own fears and guilt conjured that he must). She might not be the same seemingly innocent girl he used to meet in the Jayhawk Diner in the evenings, but she was still his wife, his beloved Mary.

"No, never," she shook her head and chuckled in a nervous fashion as she blushed. "Jim Murphy kindly puts it that I am a leader in the Church of the Born-Again Virgins. Mostly, I was known in the hunting community as the coldest bitch on the planet. I think Bobby got invited to bed more than I did."

"Good," John sighed then shook his head. "I mean… You're not a… Well, actually, you can be a bit of a…"

"Stop," she commanded. "I'm going to help you from putting your sizeable foot in your mouth. I know how I can be. And even if I didn't, Dean lets me know pretty frequently that I can be a bit of a pain."

"Only we haven't gotten him to express it that politely yet," John remarked as a chuckle rumbled deep in his chest. "We really should have grounded him longer when he announced that you ride his ass often enough to enter a rodeo."

Mary waved off the memory with a quiet chuckle. Her oldest was colorful. Having spent 10 years of his life as the parent and protector of his little brother made Dean mature beyond his years in some ways and maddeningly immature in countless others. Those years grew a hard crust on his personality with an appropriately salty vocabulary to go with it. Mary knew her oldest actually possessed a tender and warm heart, but he hid it away to save himself the pain of it breaking. He was better now than when they first got him back, but his walls were far from completely demolished.

"I overheard Sam scolding him after we did," Mary said. "Sam's disapproval tends to have a greater impact on Dean than you or I making him stay in his room."

Both fell silent. Neither of the boys was the topic of concern at that moment. The T Rex-sized elephant of John and Mary as a couple was staring at them expectantly from all corners of the room. Sensing this, John grimaced. Talking about their children was 90 of the talking he did with his wife. The other 10 percent was about bills. He feared that with the boys out of the house, they might learn that there was nothing left between them. What that would mean for their family worried him. However, that was not a good enough excuse not to find out.

"Right," John nodded. "Okay, well, we're broke."

"Didn't need the reminder, but thank you for the abrupt change in the conversation," Mary said. "You always were a smooth talker, Johnny."

He smiled and hung his head at the mild chiding.

"No, hear me out," he insisted. "We're broke, so we can't go do anything extravagant, but I would like to ask you out on a date tonight, if you're not busy."

"A date?" Mary laughed. "John, we've done the dating part already. We got married, and I gave birth to two children for you."

"I recall and I thank you for all those things, but none of that matters right now," he shook his head. "So much has happened since then that it feels like we need to start over. It's kind of like when the boys first came home to us. We had to start slow and get to know them again so we could learn to be a family once more. Well, I think that's what you and I need. We've been living here in the same space, doing all the family things, but we aren't doing…"

"Each other?" she remarked without thinking then smirked. "Sorry."

"For the record, I would like to point out all evidence suggests that if any of it is genetic, Dean gets his mouth from you more than me," John offered but grinned. "So, what do you say? Do you want to try this? We can have ground rules for the date so we know what to expect and what not. Obviously, rule one is :We can't go anywhere because we have no money. Rule two: No expectations for how the date will end. I mean, if it ends like our first date ended, that's fine, but if not then that's fine, too."

Mary cocked her head to the side as she narrowed her eyes at him. She held up her hand, halting his issuance of rules.

"How exactly do you recall our first date ending?" Mary wondered. She folded hear arms tightly across her chest as she narrowed her pale gaze.

"The same way you do," he grinned. "We were at Tom Clayton's party for a very short while and then we…"

She quickly swatted his hand in reprimand as she gaped. Her face grew an misty shade of pink that was a warning to John. Whether it meant she was embarrassed or mad, he never knew. He only knew it was wise to tread carefully at this point.

"That was not our first date," Mary insisted. "Not even close. That was like our 10th official date!"

"No, it wasn't," John countered. "Every other time wasn't a real date. It was…"

"You thought I slept with you on the first date?" she gasped. "John Winchester, you are a complete ass! We were dating—exclusively—for nearly three months before… How could you think I was that kind of…"

"Not relevant anymore, Mary," he cut her off quickly. She offered him a stern look, but she was smiling under the glare. "Regardless of when our first date was or how it ended, this one doesn't have to end in any certain way. Rule three: No talking about the boys."

Mary chewed her lip. That would be hard. Their sons were the center of her world. Having lost them for so long, most of their childhoods in fact, made focusing on them, what they needed, what they did and said, her priority (John's too). Taking the boys off the table as a conversation option worried her. She didn't know who she was anymore other than Sam's and Dean's mother. Spending so many years not being their mother made her dive headfirst at the chance to take up that role again when the opportunity presented itself.

"John, that's going a little far," she said. "We're their parents. They're a huge part of our lives and who we are."

"Rule is a rule, Mary," he replied. She rolled her eyes but kept silent. "Look, we know we are parents. We know we love the boys and take care of them. I don't know about you, but I don't know who I am anymore outside of being their father. That's not a complaint, but I've been thinking that it's time that I figure that out. I think you need to do the same."

Mary sighed. That John's thinking was identical to hers was both not a surprise and a shock at the same time. The unsurprising part was in his admission the boys were his world. John was big on family. It was his unwavering devotion to the concept of family that did not let him accept every expert opinion (civilian and psychic) that his boys were dead. If his dogged streak and competitive nature sometimes grated on Mary during the early parts of their marriage, she could not undervalue its importance now. It was that which brought her sons back to her and it was that which made her forgive her husband for all the imperfections that once riled her and put their marriage in dangerous waters.

What did shock Mary was that she did not realize until her husband spoke those words that he felt his identity was a mystery now just as she did. Knowing how daunting and scary it was to face that, she wondered why she had not noticed this inner turmoil in her husband previously. That lack of perception did not bode well for their impending date. If they lived in such close quarters but were able to keep such bone deep secrets from each other, what else might they find out about each other that they had been hiding?

"What if we figure out we don't belong together?" she asked after a moment of contemplation. "Sammy and Dean can't take an upheaval like that."

"This isn't about them," John reminded her. "Besides, they deserve honesty and stability from us, not an act or a front."

She nodded slowly but felt the first stages of panic begin to flutter in her stomach.

"So a date?" she swallowed dryly. "Okay." She nodded and tried hard not ignore the knot in her stomach, the one that felt a lot like the fear she felt when she used to hunt ghosts and monsters.

**oOoOoOo**

The phone at Singer's Salvage rang yet again. There were half a dozen messages on the various answering machines. Each was from a hunter seeking Bobby's advice on a case and wondering where he was or expressing disbelief that the hunter had actually taken the vacation he said he would. The latest call, though, was on the legitimate business line. It was not one many hunters called. It was the ultimate in emergency lines as it was the only one truly registered to Bobby and traceable to him. The voice on the end of this call was again measured but much more urgent than his first call.

"Bobby, this is Summer Proudfoot," the native's voice said. "I assume you did not receive my warning and proceeded to the woods. The wind's tale to me was wise. A demon long dormant has awakened in the vicinity of your destination. It took two men who remain missing and mortally wounded a child several days ago. The reports of their disappearance only appeared in the news today. If a friend is helping your business and reviewing your calls, please know that I will summon help to find Bobby Singer, but I must also go to hunt this beast. I have asked the spirits to watch over Bobby and his young friends. I pray that the spirits listen and heed my request. You should do the same."

**oOoOoOo**

* * *

**A/N: More to come shortly.**


	4. Chapter 4

**oOoOoOo**

Bobby and the boys set camp where the trees separated slightly, little thin rays of light streamed into the dark forest. Bobby dropped the tent and an order for the boys to erect it while he scouted the area for firewood they would need later. They took to the task as Bobby disappeared into the brush. As precaution, he grabbed a stick and drew a series of symbols in a wide perimeter around the camp. They were Cree Indian symbols to ward off the kinds of evil he promised Mary and John did not exist in this neck of the woods.

He hoped he was right and that the pictograms he traced would prove unnecessary.

As he scratched the symbols out of sight of his young companions, the boys worked on their shelter for the night. Sam had the written instructions and drawn a diagram. He proceeded to assemble the supports and lay out the spikes while giving orders to his brother to unfold the canvas tent in a certain way. Dean listened for all of two minutes before ripping the page from Sam's hands and balling it up. He flung it over shoulder and barked at his brother to "fetch." Sam stalked off, angrily snarling at his big brother for his strong arm tactics, while prophesying Dean could not put the tent up properly without following instructions.

Bobby heard the spat through the cover of the trees, but let it run its course. When he returned, he was surprised to see the tent erected—not perfectly taut or straight—but done passably well. What did not surprise him was Sam sitting with his back against a tree sulking. Dean stretched his shoulders then announced his intention to take a swim in the river a couple dozen yards away.

"What's with you?" Bobby asked Sam as Dean could be heard humming some tune while he made his way to the water.

"I told Dean how to do it, and he didn't listen," Sam sulked. "I had the instructions all written down for us to follow so it was done right."

"Well, looks like he listened because it's up just fine," Bobby observed.

"No, he didn't listen," Sam shook his head. "I told him what to do, and he did something different than I said. He didn't follow the directions. He didn't even know them, but…"

"You're mad because he did it without reading about it or listening to what you knew?" Bobby translated. "Look, Sam, your bother ain't exactly an academic superstar. He's smart enough and all, but he's more like… Do you know anything about music?"

"I listen to the radio," Sam nodded. "We have music class at school, too."

"Well, you know what classical music is, right?" Bobby offered. "It's all technical and orchestrated—very orderly and precise. It's complicated and beautiful when it's done right. Play all the notes just as they are put on the page and you have a glorious symphony." Sam nodded, following him. "That's you. You're the classical symphony. You're Beethoven."

Sam grinned. Beethoven was a genius—that much he knew about classical music. He blushed, too, at the comparison. Bobby was one of the smartest people Sam ever met—smarter than all his teachers, he was certain. He knew history and all sorts of other facts, and he could speak Japanese.

"Well, Beethoven is great, spectacular, but it ain't the only kind of music there is," Bobby continued. "You ever heard of Jazz?" Sam shrugged and nodded. "Well, Jazz is unique for music in that it don't have rules except to break 'em. It's less structured and confined. Some folks say the genius is in both the notes that get played and the ones that don't. Do you understand that?"

Sam offered him a puzzled look. Bobby sighed and put a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Three jazz musicians could play the same song, exactly perfect, and they wouldn't sound alike at all," Bobby explained. "They put their own spin and flare on the notes and make up some new ones along the way. It's just as beautiful and complicated as classical music, but it's just gotta go its own way. It's less formal, and you can't teach it. You gotta feel it. It comes from your heart and your soul."

"And you're saying I'm orderly, but Dean's a mess?" Sam wondered.

"Yeah, he's Johnny Coltrane to your Beethoven," Bobby nodded. "Not better, not worse, just different. See those jazz guys could play Beethoven too, I guess, but it wouldn't sound at all like your symphony. It'd be just as beautiful for some, but it would get the point across in a different way. That's you and your brother."

Sam sighed and nodded, accepting the comparison but not sure he fully understood. Bobby could see the boy making mental notes to go to the library and research jazz as soon as he got out of the woods. Bobby knew if he had said the same thing to Dean, the boy would have asked him to hum something or asked if he had a CD he could listen to. The old hunter stifled a chuckle, thinking that alone made his point on the differences in the boys. Bobby also made a mental note not to have the same conversation with Dean. He would, no doubt, completely agree his little brother was a symphony, but the teen would undoubtedly hate jazz. The more Bobby thought about it, the more he realized Dean was better compared to the Delta Blues—another fact he would never utter. The kid carried too much on his shoulders still. Pointing him at music focused on the wrenching pains of the heart and soul wouldn't do the kid any favors.

"Go make sure your brother doesn't drown in the river looking for mountain mermaids," Bobby said, planting a smirk on Sam's face.

The boy nodded once and hurried down the path carved through the brush by his brother a few minutes earlier. The hunter then inspected the tent. Although he had to adjust it a bit, the boys (or more specifically Dean) hadn't done such a bad job—which was a miracle considering the bitching that went on about how he erected it. Bobby knew that the fact the tent was up did not bother Sam. It was the younger boy's lack of understanding how his brother could simply look at the puzzle of pieces and put the picture together without following the proscribed rules that didn't sit well with the young scholar. Sam was all about order and following rules. He was the quintessential good kid—the one every teacher wanted in their class and who would breeze through his academic career with praise and accolades galore. He would be a success in whatever field captured his interest because he would work hard to master it.

Dean was a different story. Most teachers dreaded his name on class lists. He did the bare minimum and spent most of his day waiting for the clock to reach 3 o'clock. He was smart enough to do better, but was not interested in applying himself. He was mechanically inclined, Bobby knew. The kid would fall asleep trying to diagram and dissect a sonnet, but he could take and a mess of parts to make a working contraption with ease. Dean could see the art and order in chaos, the final picture in the many scattered details. Reading instructions (or being told what they were) likely would hinder his problem solving process.

As Bobby assured himself the lines were sufficiently tight, having straightened and wedged just two of the tent spikes for insurance, he stepped back to admire the work. It was then that the high pitched shriek of a young boy tore through the woods like a jagged knife. Noting it was a cry of delight rather than fear, casually Bobby checked his Bowie knife (the dual purpose one overlaid with silver in case he ever needed it for something other than the type of wild game folks ate). He next grabbed the small netting from his pack with little hope of it being effective as he ambled toward the shouting.

"Damn idgits are gonna scare the fish," Bobby grumbled and trudged toward the river.

He had checked the water on his survey of the area surrounding their campsite earlier. The river was wide and high, the last of the spring runoff from the mountains swelling the veins of water. However, the currents were slow. He felt confident the boys faced no serious danger from the water. Of course, he forgot to factor in their own numbskull defaults. He came into view of the riverbank to see Sam soaring through the air and landing with a splash in the chilly waters. From the trajectory, Bobby surmised his brother had flung him (no doubt at the younger one's urging) from a rock outcropping that hung over the edge of the water, jutting out a few yards toward the deeper part of the river.

"There could be damn rocks down there!" Bobby shouted perturbed but not overly worried as Sam quickly broke the surface and swam with a slow but confident stroke back to the banks with a huge grin in front of chattering teeth. Goosebumps erupted on the boy's skin as he shook droplets from his shaggy brown locks.

"There's not," Sam shouted gleefully, all animosity for his brother evaporated in the brilliant sunshine. "Dean checked."

"Of course he did," Bobby said to himself as he waved the kid back to his diving perch. He then spoke more loudly so both could hear him. "Then try not to drown."

"Okay," Sam nodded as he scrambled back up the rock.

Bobby gazed to the outcropping to see Dean, lounging lazily in his boxers soaking in the afternoon sun while drying off. His shirt was tossed carelessly on the rock as were his jeans and boots. His pale skin shone ghostly in the sunlight as he nodded confidently to Bobby. The teenager, for all his internal hang ups and fear of rejection, sat with such an air of confidence and poise that Bobby nearly felt sorry for the high school girls who would surely lose their hearts (and a few other things) to the budding Casanova. Without a single girl within a hundred miles to ogle him, he perched with such grace and contentment that Bobby almost wondered if he was posing. Then the reason for the ease in the teen's posture struck him.

It was Sam.

Dean's little brother was laughing, giggling like a kid with no cares or worries in the world while running off at the mouth about how cool it would be to have a river like this back at their house; how they could go swimming all the time after school; and how he and Dean should go camping like this every year forever. Dean nodded, listening, and smiling at the flood of happiness in his brother's voice. Sam's happiness was Dean's refuge, Bobby knew. No matter what might be wrong in Dean's world, if Sam was happy, Dean was too. It was a touching sight, both wondrous and sad to observe. The love the boys held for each other was stirring but also worrisome. If anything ever happened to one of them, the other would suffer unspeakable agony.

Bobby's eyes were drawn to the scar on Dean's chest—a surgical mark from a lifesaving procedure one year earlier. While his big brother was in the hospital in grave condition, Sam had endured a worry and anguish so deep one would think he was the needing emergency surgery. Sam might be able to struggle on if he lost his brother, but it would be a long and hard uphill battle for him. If anything were ever to happen to Sam… Bobby shivered at the thought. Too many years being the brother, parent, friend and bodyguard to the little guy intrinsically tied Dean's life to Sam's. There was no doubt in Bobby's mind that if any ill-fate befell the youngest Winchester, Dean wouldn't survive.

Brushing aside that chilling thought, Bobby waved at them, pointing further down the bank, leaving them to their moment of contentment while he attempted to catch a trout dumb enough not to be scared away by the two yahoos recently thrashing and splashing in their universe. The hunter moved another 30 yards down the bank of the lazy river, keeping the boys basically in his line of sight. The water presented no threat, but the worry in expressed by both John and Mary over the boys leaving struck Bobby profoundly. His previous jitters about the woods were melting. He decided most of his worry was just residual fears from John and Mary's concern. He didn't blame them, but he was experienced in the woods with all sorts of critters—the kind game wardens knew about and the kind they denied. So, Bobby gave the boys their space to play, but he kept them in sight while he marveled at how far they had come in a single year.

No longer were they the skittish and combative waifs who arrived exhausted, confused and emaciated on his doorstep to be reunited with a family they thought long gone. Now, they were mostly happy, much healthier and (he dared think it) hopeful. Dean remained cautious with an aloof streak that would kick in at the oddest and most unpredictable times, but he no longer held thoughts of running away. Sam was a complete success on the family front. He embraced his family like he had never been without them—which, considering his brother's careful decade-long oversight wasn't far from the truth. Bobby smiled. The little boy was growing up fast. While the teen years were on the horizon, the hero worship for his big brother remained.

Bobby shook his head as he watched Sam resting on the rock, striking the same pose as his brother—purposefully copying Dean's posture and attempting the aloof air his brother radiated naturally. A quick glance at the older boy showed he had no idea Sam was mimicking him. Dean was watching Sam carefully but the thought that his little brother admired him so greatly simply would never cross his mind. Perhaps, Bobby thought, that was because the older one's thoughts were too firmly rooted still on protecting his little brother and making him happy. That simply being there for Sam was a huge part of the equation would simply never enter Dean's consciousness. He did not think highly enough of himself to think anyone (even his greatest fan) could value him that much.

Thoughts like that always tensed Bobby's throat. That damn kid. Dean got under the old hunter's skin nearly the moment they met. It was something about the pain the boy held inside that made Bobby ache in a way he hadn't since he'd had to bury his wife. He knew about fear and wanting to feel safe while shouldering an obligation to protect someone you loved. He couldn't do that for his mother, and he was not able to do that for his late wife. Hunting and saving strangers gave him some sense of peace, but he did not feel it in his heart—hadn't felt a thing in the ticker in years, until he met the Winchester boys.

Bobby's life had changed, drastically so, in 12 short months. Now, it was less hunting and more homemaking (sort of). He spent his time scouring estate sales for books on botany for Sam rather than books on Buruburu's for his research. He honed his negotiating skills on talking Dean through dealing with tough teachers rather than keeping his tongue wily to talk twitchy cops out of arresting him when caught in a compromising situation. He sighed as he realized he'd become the one thing he never wanted to be: a family man. He actually celebrated holidays now and last year even had Christmas for the first time since his wife Karen died. Bobby was beyond surprised, shocked in fact, when Mary offered him the invite to the Winchester home that December day. He only planned to stop in for a minute, not wanting to invade, but Sam had made Bobby a Santa hat out of felt and cotton balls and presented it with a toothy grin that let Bobby know the kid expected him to stay the whole day. The crusty hunter did so, gruffly swallowing back the sudden tightness in his throat. When he did finally depart long after the sun went down, he returned home feeling better than he had in ages then wailed like a baby without exactly knowing why. His eyes grew misty again at the memory of that day. He sniffed pointedly and felt like a fool as he brushed his watery eyes and looked down the river bank for a distraction.

What he found dried his eyes and cinched his stomach. In the side of a tree, at least 10 feet off the ground, were a set of deep and not too old claw marks. Bobby's blood ran cold as he looked to the west to see the sun beginning is descent to the horizon. Night would begin falling fast. The hunter felt a cold chill snake down his spine as he realized he and the dynamic duo were now the hunted.

**oOoOoOo**

"Shit!" John hissed as the sting of his razor bit into his neck.

The small cut, a nick, drizzled blood down his the cords in his neck. He mopped the spot quickly with a towel and stuck of a piece of toilet paper to it. His hands were still shaking. It wasn't from the sight of blood. That had not bothered him since his days as a boy scout when he earned his first aid badge. No, the quakes were straight up nerves. He felt like a teenager going on his first date. In fact, he did not even recall being this nervous for his first date with Mary regardless of when that actually was (which he still contended was Tom Clayton's party).

Still, despite the nerves making his hands shake, ruining his shave and give his stomach a case of near seasickness, he was eager. This was, he knew about himself, a good feeling. It wasn't angsty nerves based on something horrible on the horizon. It wasn't the pain of anticipating something going horribly wrong. No, this was something that had to happen, and he would just accept the results. Not that he was feeling cavalier about it. John did care about the outcome, but he just felt that whatever happened, he could deal with it because some moments in life were too huge to second guess.

It reminded, he realized, of the way he felt the night he proposed to Mary. In fact, there were five moments in his life that left him feeling this way: excited and nervous with a bizarre mix of fear and elation. Each one, although stressful on some level and fraught with worry, turned eventually into the happiest moments of his life. He recalled each of them as though they just occurred. The first was 20 years earlier, the night he proposed to Mary. The others were both days she told him she was pregnant; and the moment both of his sons were born. Each instance left him trembling but also gave him an overwhelming feeling of purpose and duty. He did not know if feeling this fearful anticipation for his date with his wife was a good sign, but he could not make himself worry that it was a bad one.

Mary Campbell was the love of John Winchester's life. When they first met, it was all sparks, but not the kind that people recognized as sexual tension. They were more the kind between two people who legitimately revile each other, but then something changed. How and when was not clear in his mind any longer. He knew her through a friend of a friend kind of deal. After a while, the friends drifted and John and Mary were left with each other. It seemed, once the crowds were missing, they could see and hear who the other was rather than just hanging on to those flawed first impressions.

He always knew part of her attraction to him was her father's objections. John thought that odd at the time. Girls were supposed to be attracted to the bad boy image. He was, at least then, as straight-laced as they came. He was a blue collar worker, a mechanic with a steady 8-4:30 job. He was a Marine—present tense in his mind as there was no such thing as a former Marine (at least not to any Marine worth the title). John liked his life orderly and predictable. He believed in honor and protecting those things he cared about. Family came first with him. His own father walked out on him when he was just a kid. His stepfather, a mechanic and World War II vet, taught him the importance of supporting your family and standing by them no matter what. When his mother died while John was still in high school, his stepfather did not turn him out in the streets. He let John know that he was family, blood ties did not matter. It was that lesson, primarily, that kept John's own occasionally jealousy over his own boys' affection for Bobby Singer from boiling over. Family was important, whether they shared blood or not.

So Mary's desire to defy her parents all those years ago did not sit well with John at the time, but as it brought her closer to him, he did not argue about it. Their odd and untimely deaths ended any chance for fixing those fractured family ties. After her parent's passing, John started to feel that Mary saw him as more than just someone who she rebelled against her father with. He was the stabilizing force in a life torn apart. John understood that the enigmatic and highly private Mary Campbell wasn't some snobby, pretty girl. She was more than the most independent girl he'd ever known. He saw something vulnerable in her that he desired to protect—the warrior in him would have done anything to shield her.

The day he realized he wanted to be with Mary Campbell for the rest of his life was terrifying. Not because the idea of no other women ever made him feel trapped. No, his worry was she might not feel the same way.

Those thoughts tumbled through his mind as he stepped out of the bathroom, complete with his paper mache face adornments, to find Mary standing in the doorway staring at him. Her expression was at first anxious and next wildly amused.

"My, you are a handsome devil, John Winchester," Mary laughed. "You do know how to impress a girl."

"These rugged good looks are natural," he shrugged. "If I don't dress it down with some shaving nicks, then it's just not fair to you."

"I'm glad that at least Sammy got my humble genes," she replied, stepping close and adjusting the collar on his shirt.

"Rule three, Mary," he insisted. "There is no Sammy and no Dean tonight."

Mary nodded, slightly chastised by more worried by the reminder. She shrugged her apology.

"Finish clotting and primping in front of that mirror, lover boy, " she pointed toward the dresser as she strolled toward the shower. "I won't take half as long as you did to get ready."

**oOoOoOo**

The fire danced and snapped as it ate the kindling and lapped at the logs in the fire pit at the center of the campsite. Bobby cast a wary eye at the small stack of wood he gathered as the night's chill settled over the trio. The pickings for the fire were scarce to keep the blaze going all night. Fire should keep most creatures at bay, but with the sky cloudy and threatening hopes for keeping the flames burning bright were slim. Also on the thin side were Bobby's patience as one of his companions, oblivious to his tense posture and persistently swiveling eyes, continued to pester him.

"Come on!" Sam begged. "Uncle Bobby, please! Just one."

Sam sat on the ground just beyond the stone ring that enclosed their crackling campfire. The sky above was muddled with clouds blotting out the stars but the heavens were quiet. No thunder rolled. No rain was joining them yet, but that didn't mean it would stay dry. Bobby tried to keep the growl brewing in his mind from making it to his lips as he gazed pointedly into the darkness. Of all the things he anticipated for the trip, this was not one of them.

Bobby knew a lot about the scary things in the dark. He spent nearly 15 years hunting those nightmares and (when things went well) annihilating them. While he knew a lot about eradicating them and chronicling those efforts in his journal, it never occurred to him to consider the tales as bedtime stories. Mostly, at that moment, he knew there was a knot at the back of his neck from the worry he felt over not marching the kids out of the woods the second he saw those damn slashes in the bark of that tree. He knew staying put was really the only option. There wasn't enough daylight left to get back down the trail and to safety before the dark came. What pissed him off royally was that he'd done the research and checked in with a few others before taking this trip. There was never even a suspicion of a Wendigo in this area.

Of course, that didn't mean one from another spot wasn't trying to capitalize on the real estate adage of location, location, location. Creatures like that didn't often hit he most populated areas. It was too easy to get caught. Regardless of how many tasty morsels wandered by your cave, even a primitive hunter like a man turned beast knew alive and hungry was better than flat dead. Before settling in front of the fire, Bobby had double checked the warding symbols. He planned to stay awake the whole night of sentry duty. He silently scolded himself for not finding a way to pack a flamethrower. Sure, he had a flare gun, but that was only good a close range. He also had the fixings for a Molotov Cocktail; he cursed the damn evil beast possibly lurking in the dark for possibly depriving him of the preferred rotgut whiskey in his flask.

And, as if having a creepy, nasty, clawed and hungry cannibal with superhuman strength and speed possibly eyeing you as dinner, Bobby now had a crafty and demanding 11-year-old asking him for a ghost story—because for Sam, the deep, dark and dangerous woods weren't scary enough.

"No, I ain't tellin' you a scary story," Bobby groused despite the kid's penetrating, pleading eyes. "If I tell you a creepy campfire story, you're gonna try crawling into my sleeping bag the first time you hear an owl hoot tonight. Then I'll have nightmares."

"You get over Sammy crawling into bed while a shivering like a frozen puppy," Dean said as he reclined on the far side of the fire, with a bored expression scoffed..

The teen lay on the ground a few feet from the fire with his fingers laced behind his head. He had been playing it aloof, basically sulking in Bobby's opinion, ever since the hunter confiscated his backpack based on intel from Sam. Dean was hauling contraband and it was not part of the agreed upon provisions. Bobby figured if he took the kid's M&M's and portable CD player, it would motivate him to be social and do as they planned by helping scare up their meals. Sam had gone all out finding berries along the trail. Dean had simply rolled his eyes and refused to help. Copping that attitude left him with the duty of cleaning the fish Bobby caught and digging the hole to bury the guts to keep critters from joining them in the dark hours. As retaliation, he refused the meal Bobby made. Now, Dean's stomach's would growl occasionally loudly enough to be heard above the crackle of the fire.

"I should warn ya, Bobby," Dean continued. "What really sucks is when he gets his cold feet all tangled in yours or when he digs nails into your skin 'cuz he's all tensed up like a cat afraid of a bath."

"I do not!" Sam snapped. "I don't crawl into your room."

Sam blew his bangs out of his eyes and scowled deeply. He turned his back on his brother to face Bobby hopefully.

"Not lately, you mean," Dean yawned, antagonizing him.

Sam tossed angry look at his brother. His brow furrowed so deep he looked like the lines were carved there. Sam wasn't precisely embarrassed that he used to seek shelter under his brother's arm when he got scared at night. He just didn't think anyone needed to know about that anymore now that he was older.

"At least I'm not the scaredy-cat who sneaks downstairs to check that the door is locked every night," Sam shot back and smirked triumphantly as Dean blanched with shock. "I heard you do it. I told Mom, too."

"Do you practice being a little bitch?" Dean scowled as he sat up from his reclined position and looked warily at the dark.

His shoulders tensed as it struck him there were no doors with locks out in the woods. Sure, he knew that already, but hearing Sam remind him just drove the point home. He knew he wouldn't be sleeping that night. Bobby might be there and have a gun, but there was just a canvas tent and a sleeping bag protecting his little brother from bears or mountain lions or genetically enhanced mosquitoes (he saw that one on TV around 1 a.m. when he couldn't sleep before the trip that brought them into the middle of nowhere).

"Something wrong, Dean?" Bobby asked, sensing the boy's sudden alertness.

"No," he said dismissively as he heaved himself off the dirt. "Gotta take a leak."

"Stay inside the perim… uh, don't get more than a few trees back from this fire," Bobby said cautiously. "There's tree roots and holes dug by rodents all around here. You'll twist your ankle in the dark if you get too far from the firelight. I ain't carrying your sorry ass out of here tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Sam piped up quickly. "We're supposed to be here for two more days."

"Well, we're gonna find a new camping spot tomorrow," Bobby lied smoothly, deciding he would march them out of the woods along a better worn trail and deal with the kid's sulking on a long but safe drive back to South Dakota.

As long as they made it back, that is.

**oOoOoOo**

Divorce.

The echoed loudly in Mary's head. To say her dinner date was a bust was an understatement. She and John stared at each other, then at others in the diner and finally just at their plates as no conversation topic took root. Both were busy at work. John didn't like his boss. Mary was the only one at the library most of the day so she spent her time checking the book inventory. After that, there was nothing to say.

She held back a sob as she changed out of her clothing into the highly unsexy cut off sweatpants and paint-stained T-shirt she normally slept in. She was surprised at how much the word made her cringe. There was a time when remembering she was ever married and had a family seemed too distant of a memory to be real. The only thing that let her know that part of her life wasn't a dream was the tarnished silver-plated locket she wore around her neck. It was a gift from John, given to for her birthday the year Dean was born. It was heart-shaped and folded open into a four-leaf clover, allowing a small picture in each leaf. She opened the clasp. It protested initially, having spent most of the last decade closed. As it sprung open, she was greeted with the familiar faces.

There tiny pictures of Sam and Dean, each taken the day they were each brought home from the hospital as infants. There was a picture of John, taken not long after they started dating, and finally there was a picture of she and John on their wedding day. Together, they looked like a happy family. For so long, they couldn't be because someone stole the children and that tore she and John apart. Now, it seemed having the boys back was doing the same thing. That thought raised fat, hot tears in her eyes.

"Hey," John said from the doorway. "Crying? Really? It wasn't that bad. I mean, it was a little quiet, but we didn't fight. To me that's a good sign."

"A good sign?" she repeated and gaped at him. "John, we have nothing in common. Nothing to talk about. No reason to stay together!"

"You mean other than two kids, a shared residence and family plans," he noted. "Mary, I wasn't expecting us to while away a few hours finding each other new and fascinating. I mean, I'm the same guy you married and knew for 20 years. My hair is starting to go gray in a few spots, and I've got wrinkles under my eyes—just like you."

"Excuse me?" Mary snapped, turning a sharp eye on him. John recoiled slightly at her dagger expression then his face broke into a grin.

"Yeah, newsflash: We're getting old, Mary," he laughed. "Considering the alternative, it's a blessing. Look, I went into tonight's date hoping the best case scenario that we wouldn't end up shouting at each other and you wouldn't take off. After all, that's what happened the last time it was just the two of us together."

Mary sat on the bed and stared at him with a mystified expression, vaguely recalling the fight they had in West Texas more than five years earlier when she agreed to meet with her husband—back when he kept insisting he would find their children himself and she listened with cold silence as she believed the boys were dead.

The mere fact that John viewed their disastrous date this evening as acceptable only drove home her worry even more. It was as if they were from two different worlds. She could hear Dean's fears for their relationship, attributed to his younger brother, in her head. The ache in her heart was for what the destruction of the marriage would mean to her boys but also to herself. She felt genuine heartache, a sad longing that surprised her, in her chest. How John could not see the wasteland of their relationship only flared her anger more. Rather than fight about it, she shook her head and stalked down the hallway.

"Where are you going?" John asked.

"I'm sleeping in Sam's room tonight," she answered tersely.

The more typical reaction would be to kick him out of their room for the night—that's how it usually played out after a fight when they lived in Lawrence. Only, this wasn't precisely a fight. She figured it was her mind that needed space so it was only proper she vacate their room for now. She also doubted she would be able to sleep without the boys in the house. She hoped sleeping in Sam's room, surrounded by his scent, might help her settle down. Dean's room was not an option. He was a teenager and would be offended if she entered his room without permission. Sam, however, was not yet territorial about his room. He didn't like Dean going in there to mess with him and his stuff, but that was a sibling that was part of their squabbling, tussling and perpetual bonding routine. She did not precisely understand it and did not like the decibels it sometimes reached, but it made them happy so she rarely intervened beyond calling their names when the scuffles dragged.

She entered the 11-year-olds room and was instantly greeted by the precise and hushed atmosphere. There were model airplanes he built over the winter hanging from fishing line from the ceiling. There was a small soccer trophy that he received when his team came in second place in the local league sat on his dust-free dresser. She took in the sight of the room, just as she did when she dropped off his clean laundry every few days. It was a small room with bright orange walls, dark blue curtains with a matching bed comforter but mostly it was a little boy's room—her little boy. Being in there drove home the point that he was not home harder, and left Mary curled up on the bed, pressing his pillow into her face to muffle her weeping while inhaling the scent of her son.

The light from her room ceased spilling into the hallway signifying John had closed the door. Mary got out of the bed and looked across the darkened yard to see the lights at the salvage yard, the ones that stayed all night every night to deter uninvited visitors, burned brightly and made her grimace. She sighed and ran her hands through her hair as she realized she had forgotten to check Bobby's answering machine for mayday calls. Her shoulders drooped as she looked at the clock. It was nearing 8 p.m. She decided there was no reason not to go check. She walked to her room to retrieve her shoes, finding John laying on the bed staring at the ceiling with an unsettled expression. He looked up as she entered.

"I have to leave," she announced.

"What?" John said sitting up. "Why?"

"Bobby," Mary barked more loudly than she intended in her anger and frustration.

"Okay, of the many things I never want to hear yelled while I'm in bed, Bobby's name tops the list," John said.

"His phones," she snarled as she jammed her feet into her sneakers. "We said we'd check his calls."

"It's kind of late," John noted with a yawn. "They know he's away. Can't you just check in the morning?"

"When the boys were missing, Bobby answered his phone at any hour of the day that I called or left word of where I could find him if he wasn't answering," Mary said coldly. "Hunters don't keep regular hours, John. They need each other if they're going to do the job and help innocent civilians survive. Some of the hunters who might reach out to Bobby helped me from time-to-time. I have a home and a bed to go home to—most of them don't. So, I'll buy a little good karma and help out because I can."

**oOoOoOo**

_More walking. Awesome_, Dean snorted his disapproval at Bobby's announcement they would packing up and leaving in the morning. He scowled as he stared into the deep shadows.

He wasn't more than 20 feet from the camp, but he was little unnerved by how dark it was away from the fire. Dean was not afraid of the dark, but there was dark and then there was DARK. It took him a while to get used to how little light there was Sioux Falls after the sun set. It got dark in Chicago, where he spent most of his childhood bouncing from one foster home and orphanage to another with his little brother. But dark in Chicago meant streetlights (in nicer spots) and a general dim glow from the rest of the city. When night fell in South Dakota, it was like someone painted over the landscape with black paint. There in the forest, so far from pavement of any kind, the darkness shadows swallowed everything, including sound.

Dean noticed it as he zipped up his jeans having just watered some tree he couldn't identify but Sam probably could. He froze in place at the absolute stillness. Home in South Dakota, the nights were quiet but not still. In the warm weather, there were bugs and birds and a general hum of life through the evenings. He figured the woods would be similarly not-quite-quiet, but this was like graveyard quiet (which he admittedly didn't know about having never been to one, but he figured dead residents didn't make noise). He peered more directly into the shadows when his breath caught in his chest as he swore he saw a pair of yellow eyes, staring pointedly back at him.

A strangled noise somewhere between a gasp and a choke rattled up Dean's throat as he staggered backward. His heel caught on a tree root, one of the ground protrusions Bobby feared. Dean toppled over backward. His head soundly collided with the trunk of a thick and unyielding sapling sending stars popping before his eyes brighter and more plentiful than those in the sky. He struggled to his feet, scrambling for balance by gripping the trees around him as he spun his head to look around again. He regretted the movement. His heart hammered against his ribs as his legs tensed on the verge of sprinting when Dean was grabbed around the shoulders.

"What are you doing?" Bobby asked.

"What?" Dean fumbled to keep his legs under him. "There was a… I saw…"

Bobby gripped Dean's arm tightly and hustled him back toward the fire.

"Did you get lost?" Sam laughed as they approached.

Dean scowled briefly then turned his bewildered expression back to Bobby. The urge to tell him what he saw, or what he thought he saw, was strong. But he couldn't. Not with Sam there. The kid was enjoying this farce of a vacation. Even though he was just asking for a scary story, there was no reason to freak the kid out. Besides, Dean reminded himself as his heart started to settle, he couldn't have seen what he thought he did. There was no one in the woods with them. Bobby would have heard their voices. And yellow eyes? And at that height? They must have been nearly 8 feet in the air. Unless they were being quietly and secretly stalked by some NBA player wearing large, glowing contacts… Dean shook his head and let his knees slowly buckle so he could sit near the fire.

"Maybe it's time to turn in," Bobby suggested as he remained standing on the edge of the firelight. "You both turn in for the night. Do yourselves a favor, sleep in your clothes and keep your shoes on."

"Where are you going?" Sam asked.

"Just getting a few more sticks to keep the fire going," Bobby replied cautiously. "It'll keep the bugs away."

"Bugs?" Dean murmured then swallowed hard as Sam scurried past him to crawl to the back of their tent. He cast wary eyes into the darkness surrounding them. "Sure. Keep the bugs away."

**oOoOoOo**

Mary opened the back door to Bobby's house, listening to the shrieking protest of the rusty hinges. She gritted her teeth as John held the heavy door back as she fiddled with the key. She was not pleased when her husband pulled up alongside her as she walked angrily down the road from their home to the salvage yard. She only got into the Impala when he promised he would keep at a slow, rolling speed just behind her the whole way if she did not take the ride. Now, they were at Bobby's to listen to phone messages and pretend their marriage was not in a shambles.

"Didn't he used to booby trap the house?" John asked as they entered the kitchen. "I seem to recall a warning that he put spring-loaded shotguns at the doors so if you opened it…"

"That's just what he tells people he doesn't want visiting," Mary grumbled, recalling with a small smirk how much John and Bobby used to rile each other.

The hunter never liked the Marine much. The only reason they had forged a civil relationship in the first place was because of the boys. Now that Dean was interested in cars, the two alpha males were no longer staking territory. Instead, they were acting as co-teachers to the teenager. In doing so, they had found common ground that had slowly grown into and obtuse (and at times) tenses friendship.

John crossed the room and hit play on the first answering machine. Mary joined him and did the same on the other beside it. Most simply logged hang ups. There was a message from Travis stating Bobby was right about some hunt and his case wasn't a Rugaru but rather a rabid poodle.

"What about this one?" John asked, noting his wife had yet to meet his eyes and was only responding to him with cold shrugs and terse one-word answers.

"That's his business phone," Mary said dismissively. "Only people looking to drop off a wreck or buy car parts call that."

John's was about to simply walk away. His keys were in hand and his wife was heading to the door, but the blinking light bothered him. Maybe one single blink would be normal, but this one was multiple blinks signaling there was more than one message. The chances more than one person called on a Friday for a wrecked car or spare parts and left a message seemed odd. Sure, Bobby might do more business than John knew, but the salvage yard was not precisely a bustling business. A sudden flood of calls on the day Bobby was away didn't sit right with him.

He hit the play button and felt his knees quake as the soft words of warning about his sons' safety spoken by a voice he did not recognize hit him in the gut like a sucker punch. Mary raced across the room, shoving him roughly to the side as she dived toward the desk where the junkman kept his rolodex. She flipped through the listings until she located the right one. She grabbed the phone and dialed frantically.

Mary ran her trembling hand through her hair, cursing under her breath with each unanswered ring. When finally a machine on the other end received the call, she spoke with a quaking voice.

"This is Mary Winchester, a friend of Bobby's," she said in a commanding tone. "Our sons are with him in the woods. Whatever you are tracking, I am going to join you. I'll be at Hardy Station by sunrise. Please meet me…"

The receiver at the other end crackled to life as the whispering voice from the phone messages responded.

"Mary Winchester, I have only recently returned," Summer Proudfoot said. "The danger in the big woods is too great when the sun rests. I located remains of a young hiker. I was unable to recover them. I am returning to the woods tomorrow."

"I'll go with you," she said then asked with a tight throat. "How old was the victim?"

"He was a man," Summer replied calmly, relieving her immediate fears. "I would say he was no more than 20. His arms showed signs he was bound. It appears he freed himself from captivity and fell in his escape. He impaled himself on a broken branch and bled to death. I notified the rangers at Hardy Station of his location. They are retrieving the remains tomorrow."

For all her years digging up graves and viewing the carnage wrought by monsters and ghosts, hearing a dead body referred to as _remains_ never bothered her previous. Only now, she allowed herself (couldn't prevent herself) from hearing the words first as a mother rather than only as a hunter. Those remains were someone's child. That acknowledgement drove an icy spike of fear into her heart as her children, her babies, were out there and perched precariously on the cusp of being a discovery some other hunter might dub simply as _remains._

"Do you know what it is?" she asked with a cold and dispassionate tone.

"A forest demon," Summer replied.

"Can you narrow that down?" Mary asked, realizing the man used 'demon' as a synonym for supernatural rather than referring to a tortured hell spawn . "An arachane? A bugbear? A strix? A black dog? What?"

"This demon was once a man," Summer explained in calm, placid tones that grated on her.

Mary breathed the word _Wendigo_ as the icy chill in heart fanned across her body and spurred tears to rise in her eyes.

"I'll meet you at Hardy Station," she said in a tense voice thick with emotion. "We have to find my sons."

She disconnected before waiting for another word from him. Her mind was on the rucksack she had stashed in the attic, the one she hoped she would never need to pull out but that she kept packed anyway. It contained everything she would need on a moment's notice to take off on a hunting trip. It did not have the collection of weapons and IDs she had when she hunted full-time. It had a few weapons and the bare essentials: Her grandfather's silver Zippo lighter, her father's old journal, her mother's crucifix for creating holy water, a silver knife, a container of salt and a nickel-plated .45 loaded with silver bullets. Only the lighter would help kill a Wendigo, but the other stuff could be put to good use for distractions if needed.

Mary was doing that inventory and planning in her head when she realized John was on her heels rattling off a list of supplies of his own.

"What?" she asked, returning her attention to the moment. "John, I'm going to Wyoming and I don't have time to…"

"We have enough time to pack the car and at least put on boots for trekking through the damn woods, Mary," he said and caught her puzzled glare. "You're not going alone. They're my boys, too. I heard you say Wendigo. I've hunted one before, with Caleb in Minnesota maybe four years ago. You need to torch the bastards to kill 'em. I can do that. So help me, if one has gotten within a hundred feet of my boys, I will burn the damn thing into a lump of charcoal."

There was such determination in his voice and such a look of conviction on his face that Mary saw again the intense 20-something who returned from Vietnam in 1973 to sweep Mary off her feet and away from the detestable life of hunting.

"The more people looking for them, the better chance we have of getting them home quicker," he said climbing into the Impala and sending the engine roaring to life. "We just got them back. No damn Big Foot wanna be is gonna take them away from us."

Mary nodded slowly as John pounded his hand on the steering wheel. In that instant, the image of a little boy with nearly too large green eyes asking him of monsters were real flashed before his eyes. John gripped the wheel tighter as the tires sent a spray of gravel into the air as the Impala squealed out of the salvage yard.

"Bobby is with them," Mary said, trying to convince herself as much as comfort her husband. "If there is anything near them, he knows what to do. He's one of the best hunters alive."

John grunted as they tore into their own driveway.

"I actually have some faith in Sammy in the woods," she continued. "He doesn't know a thing about Wendigos, but he's read at lot about survival skills. I know Bobby will protect them, but Sammy will listen and do precisely what he says, exactly the way he says to do it. That's a good thing."

John surprised her by agreeing.

"I know," John growled. "Dean on the other hand… He's Jedi-level street smart but willfully wilderness stupid. He's allergic to poison oak and still picked it up twice last fall after I told him to be careful around it."

"That's just because he wasn't paying attention," Mary said defending the boy.

"My point exactly," John replied, sounding more like a Marine than usual. "Put Dean where there is pavement, traffic and street gangs, then he's on his A-game. Put him anywhere in nature and it's like he checks right out of his mind. He doesn't respect the outdoors or the elements or what you'll find in the woods. To him it's about as dangerous as a Disney movie."

The problem was that Disney usually got it wrong, Mary knew. In reality, hunters were not the danger and the woodland creatures were not all cute and cuddly. The one they feared at that moment was anything but; it was a perfect stalking machine, faster than any human, stronger than any, too. It could track and climb and kill with the ferocity of a great white shark in the ocean. It did not care whether someone was just a child. Or, more to the point, it might not care much. There was a chance it might view something like Sammy as not worth it's effort. He was still small, mostly skin and bones so hardly worth the effort to capture and skin. Dean, however, was (despite all Mary's protests to the contrary) a man. He was young still, just 15, but he was nearly full grown and athletic. Muscles meant meat. Bobby, too, was a savory target. The only thing going for her sons, she realized, was the hope that the hunter with them realized they were in a danger zone before it was too late.

"I actually told Sam to watch Dean's back on this trip," John confessed and kicked himself viciously inside for ever letting his children leave without him.

**oOoOoOo**

* * *

**A/N: **More to come.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes: ** Sorry for the delay. This time of year gets hectic. The story is nearly done. I hope to post the rest of the chapters in the next week or so. Thanks for hanging in there.

RE-POSTED DUE TO FORMATTING ISSUE

* * *

_**oOoOoOo**_

Pain lit up Dean's brain and woke him from his semi-comatose state.

His breath hitched in his chest as his eyes rolled in their sockets and tried to focus. All around was darkness. His heart beat frantically as he tried to place where he was and how he got there.

He was cold to the point of shivering and he was soaked. He was laying on his stomach in what he thought at first was a dumpster. There was something leafy and possibly moldy under his cheek. He didn't recall any fight or getting jumped. The sounds around him were not those of a city. There wasn't the distant call of a siren or even the hint of a car motor.

_Chicago is never quiet_, Dean's mind told him as he gingerly tried to crawl to his knees. Stabbing pains bit at his knees and palms and his head gave a mighty throb. His stomach flipped and sour tastes bubbled in his throat. He swallowed back a burning gag and noted from the damp ground behind his hands that he was outside not at the bottom of a dumpster filled with discarded vegetation.

_Outside_? Camping, his mind snatched on the knowledge greedily. _Not Chicago. We left Chicago a year ago. _

_We?_

_Where is Sam?_

The events of the evening came screaming back to him as panic set in.

Dean had stood in the woods just beyond the light from their fire and stared into the darkness then froze in place as the darkness stared back. A pair of menacing yellow eyes bored holes in the inky curtain of the night. Dean's first instinct was to blink hard and shake his head. He was certain his eyes were simply playing tricks. His next instinct was one that made him doubt his sanity. He felt drawn to step toward the… animal or creature, whatever it was. There was a odd mixture of thrill and terror in his chest as he made to move forward. It was the calloused, dry, beefy hand that fell on his shoulder which stopped him.

"You get lost?" Bobby's growly voice asked close to Dean's ear. The teen whipped his head to the side and met the older man's eyes before jerking his head back to look for the curious pair of predatory eyes only to find they were gone.

"We're not alone," Dean said in a hushed voice and hoped the quake he heard in his words wasn't missed by Bobby.

"Get back to the fire," Bobby said quickly and shoved Dean roughly backward to emphasize his point. Dean considered arguing, especially when the man put his focus on the ground rather than on the empty air in front of them. "Now."

The firmness in Bobby's tone and the tenseness of his grip sent a signal to Dean that he easily interpreted: They were in danger. That meant just one thing. He needed to get to Sam.

He hurried through the darkness back to the flickering tongues of flame dancing in the stone circle at the center of their campsite. Sam was stoking the blaze with a stick. He grinned at Dean's approach and opened his mouth to tell him something but was cut off by Dean's terse order.

"Get your boots on," Dean said harshly as he grabbed Bobby's hiking pack.

Dean had taken a peak into Bobby's bag while the man instructed Sam on gathering the kind of mushrooms that were edible. The man had discovered Dean's Discman in his bag and confiscated it along with his M&Ms, leaving Dean to finish cleaning the fish Bobby caught (the slimy and completely full of smell guts ones). Dean's plan in checking the bag was simply to retrieve his food stash and entertainment. Dean transferred the CD player back into his own bag before he heard Grizzly Adams and Boy Wonder returning. To hide his raid on the forbidden items, Dean shoved the CD (Zeppelin IV) into the pocket of his cargo pants but not before spying a large and shiny handgun in the bag. Surprise and interest prickled his senses, but he had no time to investigate further or retrieve more of his belongings. Knowing, hours later with something watching them from the darkness, Dean knew there was nothing in his own bag that would help protect Sam.

"Why do I need my boots?" Sam scowled, but followed his brother's order and began tugging them into his feet again.

"Grab your flashlight and put on whatever you've got for a sweatshirt or jacket," Dean snarled, distracting his brother with the task just long enough to slip the pistol into waistband of his pants under his shirt.

He propped the aluminum-framed backpack against a nearby tree with the straps facing toward him for easy grabbing. The extra ammunition for the pistol and the rifle Bobby carried was in the bag as well. All joking about Bobby's age and creaking bones aside, Dean knew instinctively that one of them needed to insure they had those supplies. Bobby was doing who knew what in the distance, but Dean felt certain any second he would fire a shot from his rifle then order the boys to either run or seek shelter. Dean wanted to be prepared and hustle Sam to safety as quickly as possible.

"What's wrong?" Sam asked, the annoyance in his earlier tone fading quickly as he grew more alert while tightly knotting his boots.

"Maybe nothing," Dean said, lying ineffectively.

Before Sam could ask another question, Bobby walked backward into their field of vision. His weapon was pointing near the ground but his eyes were tracked with a laser focus on the darkness. His step was cautious and his shoulders were tense.

"You both stay close to the fire," he said in a low tone. "No more piss breaks. No one leaves the camp."

"What is it?" Sam asked and swallowed hard. Dean noted, with dueling feelings of protective comfort and insecurity, that his little brother stepped closer to him, practically pressing into Dean's side for shelter.

"Might be a woodland's critter," Bobby said cryptically. "They tend to avoid fire so you stay close unless I say otherwise."

"Is it a bear?" Sam asked.

Bobby grunted an indecipherable response then waved the boys to sit down near the fire. Quiet fell over the trio as only the sound of the crackling fire filled the air. Dean noted, like earlier in the afternoon, there wasn't another sound. No birds, no bugs. Nothing.

"Rain?" he asked, looking at the sky. "You said it gets quiet when storms roll in."

Sam craned his neck to look toward the sky while pressing his shoulder reassuringly into his brother's. The ceiling of blackness above them seemed to press in closer. A low rumble sounded far off and Bobby loosed a a series of curses under his breath as he pulled the stack of firewood closer. The older man's eyes continually swept the area around them. He kept his head at a slight angle, as if tuning his ears to any sound of something approaching.

Dean felt Sam shiver. Whether it was from legitimate cold or fear, Dean did not know. Instinctively, he placed his arm around his little brother. It felt odd to do that. It was not that he did not want to soothe the kid; Dean had spent nearly all of Sam's life being his protection and comfort. Until the previous summer, that is. Now their parents did that. Dean was glad they did, except in the moments he resented them. Sam had been Dean's charge, his ward and responsibility. That their rightful protectors had returned into their lives was not something Dean minded, until he began to realize he no longer had a purpose or a place. Not that he liked that Sam was afraid or facing any danger, but Dean felt invigorated feeling useful and needed by the kid again.

Bobby walked away from the fire several times. What he did on his short trips, Dean did not know. Each time he left them, Sam tensed but a quick, reassuring squeeze of the kid's shoulder seemed to help the kid breathe easier. Eventually, Sam's head tipped to Dean's shoulder as fatigue overtook the 11-year-old. Dean's own eyes grew heavy but he continually shook himself awake. He focused on the growing roll of thunder and Bobby's occasionally impatient sighs. It was when those sighs turned into a gasp that Dean's fear gripped his throat once again and was followed by a curse of his own as cold rain began to pelt them from the clouds masking the stars.

The thick droplets hissed and sizzled as they dove into the fire. Bobby was quickly on his feet as the skies opened up. As the rain drummed the ground, Dean looked questioningly at the man as he growled something that sounded like "the symbols are gone" as he jumped to his feet. Dean followed, jostling Sam awake. The kid grumbled and rubbed his eyes while noting needlessly that it was raining. It was when the kid was trying to get his bearings that life as Dean knew it ended.

Bobby was away from the fire. What drove Dean to step away from the dying fire, he never knew. It wasn't a conscious decision. He would never have left Sam alone if he knew, even suspected, what he might see. What he did know was that he found himself at Bobby's side and was about to ask him what he was seeing when a sound, like that of a man yet so much louder and more powerful, ripped through the air.

"What the fu…," Dean began as Bobby stumbled backward into him.

Dean moved to the side, to avoid being trod upon, when a face materialized out of the darkness. It was not human, not really, and hideous. The features were distorted like some freakish mask and the skin was a mottled greenish gray. It loomed nearly two feet over Dean and was connected to arms as long as tree limbs. It reached out and swiped at him, sending a searing pain across his arm and chest.

"Get your brother," Bobby barked in his ear as he dragged Dean to his feet. "Run!"

Dean's legs obeyed but his eyes could not get with the program. As he dashed forward, ignoring the hot wetness dripping down his arm and chest, his head turned to look for Bobby. In the failing light of the now smoking fire that was flickering its last some 10 feet behind them, Dean saw Bobby throw himself at the… thing. From the swiftly moving shadow, he saw it raise its arm again and slice through the air.

Bobby was cut down and disappeared from sight.

Dean's legs pumped forward as the rest of him ran cold, refusing to process the sight he just witnessed. Instead, two words screamed in his head: Sam, run.

He did not fully recall running into their campsite. He did not recall grabbing Bobby's backpack. He just knew suddenly he was running, close on Sam's heels, through the thick darkness, batting away branches and curtains of rain as they ran in no specific direction. The ground was uneven and the rocks slippery. Sam stumbled several times. Dean hauled him to his feet, urging him forward without explaining why. The kid knew something was obviously wrong and they were in flight from something. It was like their Chicago days again—only this time it wasn't some wino or gang banger or cop. He had absolutely no idea what might be chasing them.

When the ground disappeared was another mystery for Dean. One moment, Sam was a barely visible figure dashing in front of him. The next, there was a sound that shook Dean to his very soul—the sound of his little brother screaming in terror—and suddenly Sam was gone. Dean shouted for Sam and reached out to grab him back from whatever had swallowed him only to find his fingers gripping thin air. A few steps later, the ground disappeared too and Dean found himself falling.

He had no recollection of hitting the ground. Didn't even know how far he had fallen, whether it was 10 feet or a 100. From the numerous aches and pains on his body, he had tumbled some distance. He could taste blood and the bitter sourness of fear in his mouth as he clawed at a tree to get back on his feet. His muscles protested and seized with the effort. Tears spilled from his eyes as he gasped for the breath necessary to scream out in agony, but there simply wasn't enough air. His ribs hurt too much to inhale deeply enough.

Not that he cared about breathing. What he cared about was finding Sam. His little brother had gone over the ledge or cliff or ravine (or whatever the hell they fell down) first but he was nowhere to be seen.

**oOoOoOo**

Rain pelted the windshield as John finished filling the tank of the Impala. Mary was inside the Gas-N-Go getting coffee for the final leg of the trip into the Wyoming mountains. The former marine tapped his foot impatiently and shook the droplets of rain from his soaked head. He didn't care if the rain was warm or cold. He only knew it was would make a search party reluctant to take to the skies to look for his sons. Worse, he knew they would not be able to see the help of the actual rangers as Bobby's backwoods permit was good until Monday night. The camping trio would not even be considered as late until mid-day on Tuesday.

And Tuesday might be too late. The muscles in his jaw bunched at what 'too late' meant in this context. He had just found his sons a year ago. They'd only been a family for a year, and he'd lost them again. Most days, John didn't let himself think about those years of searching for their boys. He didn't let his mind wander to the days when he wrote off one of them as dead and the other as hopelessly lost. Except this night. How could he not faced with that nightmare again? The first time the boys disappeared, Mary blamed herself. She was certain it was her secret background as a hunter that ripped their children from their home. John felt the weight of his own guilt this time. He should have canceled the trip as soon as he learned he could not accompany them. He trusted Bobby with their safety, but it was his own job to take care of them and protect them. He felt the bitter and stabbing pangs of failure for that.

John was pulled from the dark and terrifying thoughts of what his children might be facing as his wife returned to the car and handed him a Styrofoam cup that was nearly scaling hot through the packaging.

"I used the payphone inside and got a hold of Summer," she said wrenching open the door as he finished filling the car. "He said he can't find any other hunters in the area and the rangers wouldn't believe him if he said there was trouble in the woods. Apparently, most of them think he's a kook."

"Naturally," John growled and gritted his teeth before climbing into the car.

"However," Mary cut off his snarl, "he does have some friends who are willing to take up a plan in the morning as long as the storm doesn't get violent. He thinks we should split up. One of us should go with the plane and the other should head toward the campsite."

John shook his head and scoffed at the idea. That sounded like a fine plan with one large, sucking problem: They didn't know where the campsite was. There were hundreds of square miles of possible camping sites. Granted, there was no way a guy pushing 50 and two young kids walked more than a few miles with full camping packs, but the few miles they could have hiked in any direction made a random search of the area pointless.

"It would be," Mary cut off his diatribe in a tense tone. "I, however, have Bobby's intended location. He told Summer roughly where they would be. He apparently hoped Summer might hike in and catch up with them. He thought Sam might enjoy talking to Summer about the Lakota Tribe. Since you've apparently given up already, take me to the trail head at Hardy Station. I'll hike in looking for them. You can head back to Sheridan and meet up with Summer and his pilot friend."

Mary folded her arms tightly then stared pointedly out the window. Her mind was doing a quick calculation of how far she might get into the woods by dawn. She would go first toward the projected campsite. While she was not naturally an optimist, the fact that her long-lost boys were returned to her against all odds the previous year gave her hope. There was a chance that the toothy, claw-sporting man-eater wasn't stalking her babies. And if one wasn't, she'd need to explain to her children her sudden and unexpected appearance at their 'guys only' weekend outing. She chewed her lip on that one. She needed a cover story, one Dean would buy and that wouldn't make Sam worry.

"I'll go," John grunted as he pushed the accelerator to the floor as they sped down the dark road again. "I'll drop you in Sheridan. I know about these Wendigos. I've hunted one before. I'm better in the woods than you are and I can cover more ground. Besides, if there isn't one there, the boys will freak out if you suddenly appear. I could just tell them I got the weekend off after all."

"What are you doing about your job?" Mary asked, worrying for the first time about the main paycheck that made their lives in Sioux Falls possible.

"I'll worry about that later," John said. "If Tim fires me, I'll open my own damn garage. I can take half of Tim's business with me, but right now all I care about is getting my sons back home."

"Our sons," Mary corrected him firmly.

_**oOoOoOo**_

A chill, caused as much by his soaked clothing as the coolness of the dawn air, covered Dean like a blanket. He woke with a crick in his neck. The knot was painful and unyielding as he slowly and agonizingly turned his head in the misty gray light. He lay toppled on his side near a large tree. He had not made it far when he awoke in the dark and tried to search for his brother. He tripped and stumbled immediately upon standing and found he lacked the strength and desire to rise again.

As he gained his bearings, Dean noted the restraints pulling his shoulders back. He still wore Bobby's hiking pack but as he reached for his waistband, he realized the gun he tucked there was gone. He hung his head and heard himself whimpered. His head hurt as badly as any of his bumps and scrapes from the fall. In fact, it hurt worse. The world still bent and swayed when he turned his head too fast. His thoughts were sluggish and just getting to a sitting up straight position left him feeling like he was about to hurl or pass out again.

But his own ailments were not a good enough reason to remain on the ground. His brother was somewhere. Sam was his responsibility. Dean knew, as he clawed his way to his feet once again, that finding Sam was what mattered.

He got to his feet, but his knees shook. He stumbled forward, colliding with another tree trunk as he attempted to balance his dizziness and the awkward weight of the hiking pack. Part of him wanted to dump the stiff-framed bag, but in it were the only supplies they had. What those supplies were specifically, Dean could not recall, but something told him they were important. As he staggered forward, gripping trees with his scraped and bleeding hands, a sharp and ripping pain bit at his thigh. Bracing himself, he focused on his leg to see a drying bloom of blood soaking through the pocket of his cargo pants. He cautiously reached into the buttoned pocket and hissed in pain as he drew out a shiny, half circle of plastic.

"Damn it," Dean seethed as he looked at the snapped edge of the Led Zeppelin CD he had stashed in the pocket when he raided Bobby's bag early the previous evening. "I am so dead."

He absentmindedly tucked the shattered disc into his blood-soaked pocket and dragged his stiff and punctured leg as he moved forward. The trees seemed to sway and close in on him, blocking his progress and disorienting him.

_Damn trees_, Dean told himself as he felt the world tipping as he tried to stand still and get his balance. His chest heaved and he gagged as his stomach flipped.

_I hate trees, _his internal rant continued. _Must have hit my head on one. It's like they attacked. I thought trees only did that in the Wizard of Oz. Crap, is this Oz? No. There was no tornado, and we don't live in Kansas anymore. Hey, that's kind of funny and… lame. I was born in Kansas; Sammy, too, apparently. Huh. I wonder if I would recognize our old house. I remember there was a tree out front. _

_Friggin' trees. Sammy planted one in the yard at our house… Sammy?_

The fear that had tried to rise in his mind since first waking on the forest floor in the dark crashed over Dean.

"Sammy?" he screamed in panic and desperation. The effort make his head hurt more, but the ache of fear in his heart was stronger. "Sam? Where the hell are you?"

_Dean felt his heart stutter as the waves of terror rushed through him. He forced his breath to slow down and closed his fists tightly to keep his hands from shaking. A prickle along his neck made him feel like someone (or worse, something) was watching him. He did his best to cast off that eerie sensation and forced himself to try for a state of calm._

_Okay, focus, Dean,_ he commanded himself._ Okay, I need rules. Christ, I sound like Dad. What do you know, the son of a bitch is right. I actually need rules. You're gonna get me out of this, Dad. You always tell me you know best, so… _

_Rule one: No more trees. Yep, get to where there are fewer trees and more pavement. That's rule two. No, wait. Rule one. Oh crap, I forget. God my head hurts. Aspirin comes from trees, right? Maybe if I chew some bark... No, no bark. And no more trees. Trees tried to kill me, and I think they ate Sam. _

"Sam!" Dean shouted again and regretted it as a blinding pain lanced through his skull and made his stomach flip.

His face suddenly felt wet, but whether it was from tears, sweat, blood or a combination of all of them did not know. He just knew his heart was hammering against his bruised ribs and his head throbbed. He was also certain the trees were closing in around him.

_Know your enemy. I read that in __Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War.' W__ell, I read the English version of it—some of it anyways—back in Chicago. The Rabbi gave it to me. He said I had to or he'd never train me. Well, now it makes sense. Trees are the enemy. They're tall and have bark, and there are lots of them. So, no more trees—that's rule three, I think. God, I hate trees. Smacking you in the head without asking, like Bobby, only they hurt more and don't smile or laugh. _

Dean groped along a rough trunk and tried to ignore the blood on his hands. Even with his bleary eyes, he could see the liberal splashes of red on his fingers, knuckles and forearms. He blinked at the jagged cuts and gouges in his skin as his breath grew shallow while quickening. He was never one to grow faint at the sight of blood, but he also never saw it any great quantity (and rarely ever any of his own). He had suffered minor scrapes and a few bloody noses or split lips in his life. He'd bandaged a few scraped knees and elbows on Sam, but those were drizzles of blood. There was never enough to ooze and drip. The red wash on his skin raised sour vapors in his throat as he stared at the cuts, like the forest had mauled him.

_Trees don't have teeth, but I think one bit me all the same. Great. I'll probably get tree rabies. Friggin' trees with their stupid leaves and needles. Yeah, needles suck, too. Needles from doctors and nurses, who don't like you and jab you because you called them hags and even though they took your spleen without asking and… _

He stopped dead in his tracks, swaying slightly as he looked around him for his bearings and some indication of what direction he was heading in (or some indication of where he'd come from). He ran a shaking hand through his hair, wincing as he grazed a raised lump on his scalp. Distantly, he knew the bump was a greater concern than the crimson painting his forearms and knuckles. Whether it was truly growing dark already or his vision was dangerously compromised, Dean knew finding his brother was imperative. Time was not on his side and, if the kid was hurt worse than he was, it certainly wasn't Sam's friend either at the moment.

_Sammy,_ Dean pushed himself forward. He stumbled in frustration as he tried to weave through the tight tangle of trees and scrub brush_. Find Sammy. Then…. Then what? Home. Find the little guy then go home. Well, get to the car, and Bobby will get us back to… Oh god. That thing killed Bobby._

The thought sucker punched Dean.

A different sort of pain ripped through his gut with the speed and precision of lightning. Dean choked on a sob as his eyes swelled with tears. The hot, fat drops spilled over his lids and slid down his scraped and dirty face. The blood from his head lacerations was drying and becoming tacky but still smeared when he dragged his arm across his face. The sweat, tears, mud and blood mixed and into an ugly smudge. He felt sick to his stomach as shivers radiated out of his core at the thought of what that thing did to Bobby.

Dean had watched Bobby tried to tackle that… thing. He heard a long and terrifying screech from it, or maybe it was Bobby. Then Dean lost sight of Sam and they both fell. The echoes of that horrific noise followed him into the darkness until he heard nothing at all. Whether they simply stopped because the fight was over or Dean lost consciousness as he tumbled and cart-wheeled down the ravine, he did not knot. All he was certain of was that the bone-chilling growl and roar of the beast were not normal. Not that normal mattered. Normal was long gone. Dean knew for certain that it left the moment his friend died.

Bobby had been his friend—his first, true, _non-Sam_ friend. Sure, Dean knew guys his own age at school and liked a few of them well enough to play on the baseball team and catch movies with the group along with a few of the less stuck up girls once in a while. But Dean didn't trust any of them, not the way he trusted Bobby. Dean never told anyone at school how he came to live in South Dakota or anything about him that they didn't see or hear from being around him. Seeing as Dean didn't do or say much on any given day at school (not unless he couldn't avoid it), that meant they didn't know much about him at all.

Bobby was different.

Dean didn't have a single secret from Bobby—never even tried to keep one from him and couldn't think of a single reason to do so. He told Bobby things he didn't tell his parents: which teachers made him feel stupid, which girls he would give the time of day, the occasional flashes in dreams he still had about the night he and Sam were taken from their home. Bobby would listen and talk to him. The grouchy older man wasn't always easygoing—he certainly liked to give Dean crap when he thought Dean was being an idgit—but that didn't limit Dean's trust in him.

Bobby wasn't always easygoing, but he listened to Dean without judging and without ratting him out to his parents. Sure, Bobby was a full-blown adult, but he was the only authority figure Dean recognized other than his parents. Bobby wasn't precisely a parent, but Dean knew the guy cared about him and Sam at parental way and (even better) there was no baggage between them. Bobby was always straight with him and, in Dean's opinion, was too reasonable to be a parent even though he called Dean 'son' like he meant it. Bobby usually put up with Dean's crap, but when Bobby got on his case about something, the guy did it in a way Dean could handle without boiling with anger or indignation.

He spoke to Dean like he was a real person rather than a little kid. He also never acted like Dean couldn't take care of himself. Sometimes, he would look at Dean with this expression that ached of sadness but was also full of understanding. It was as if the man could read Dean's thoughts and knew his feelings (the ones Dean swallowed or pretended he didn't have—the kind that made the teen's eyes sting with tears or make him want to fade into a corner so no one could see him). Those moments didn't happen much, but Bobby always seemed to notice when they did. Whenever that happened, the guy would just start talking about… well, lots of things—things that didn't seem to be important, but somehow in what he said, Dean would find a way to get his head straight and stop being so angry or hurt by whatever was eating him in the first place.

And now Bobby was gone. A year after gaining a family, Dean had just lost part of it. The pain he felt was both sharp and dull. It lanced through him like a freshly whetted blade and also crushed slowly and mercilessly on his heart. Dean hung his head, feeling the mighty weight of sorrow on his aching shoulders. It was like he was never meant to have lasting peace. The teen stumbled forward with those thoughts and swallowed hard as he squinted his eyes tightly, trying to stabilize his vision. The ground tipped and wobbled while the damn trees swayed. Dean staggered into the trunks, bruising his shoulder and collar bone. The throbbing in his bruised bones pulsed, just like his head, with each thump of his heart. His voice cracked with fear and pain as he called for his brother.

"Sam?" Dean rasped. "Sam, I'm here. Where are you? I have to find you. Dude, make some noise. I'm coming to get you. Just let me know where you are. Sammy?"

Dean paused, holding tight to the bark of a sprawling tree, and dragged in a rough and frantic breath. His ears picked up a lot of noises, not all which he was certain were truly there. The birds were back, he noted. They cawed and called from the high branches. Mosquitoes hummed around his head, making his dizziness stronger as he tried to shake them away (regretting the movement as it caused his already stormy stomach to flip yet again). He was pretty sure the sirens his ears reported were just caused by the damage done to his head. Their sound was too soon since their run in with the pissed off Big Foot for help to have arrived. He was also pretty certain it was not possible for squad cars, ambulances and fire trucks to get this far into the forest without actual roads.

_Not even a plane would spot us up here because I can't even see the sky_, Dean hung his head and drew a defeated breath.

"We need to be out in the open, Sam," he said loudly. "I'll find us a clearing. Someone will realize when we're not back at the ranger's station on time. They'll know something is wrong. They'll send search parties. They'll find us out in the open. Just gotta find you."

Dean closed his eyes and leaned heavily on a fallen tree as his ears strained to pick apart the noises around him, sifting through them frantically for any sign of his baby brother. His head spun and the sound of his frantic heart drown out too many noises. He forced his eyes open and scanned the green sea of leaves and lichen in front of him with a sinking feeling.

_Gotta get the little guy into the open so someone can find him,_ Dean pushed himself_. There was a lake on Sam's map, right? Yeah, I saw a blue blob thing. It was left of the trail so that's like west, toward the sun, if the sun is out. Can't really see the sun under all these trees. Gotta get out in the open, away from these friggin' trees. _

_Someone will see us in the open, and that… thing won't go in the open, I hope. Fuglies like that must hide or some ranger woulda shot it's ass off. Gotta keep it away from Sam. Need to take him to the lake. Just gotta walk a bit. Can't be far. We'll be found there. It'll be safe. Gotta get Sammy some place safe._

"Sam!" Dean shouted frantically, his voice cracking with fear. "Come on! Answer me, damn it! That's a friggin' order, Sam. Sam? Sammy?"

The final choking sounds left his throat, followed by a sob. Dean breathed unevenly for a moment until his ears picked up a the faintest sound, like a whimper mixed with a strangled cry. His heart unclenched and relief flooded into his veins as his eyes swept the area in front of him. All he saw were vegetation and rocks, but he knew what he heard.

"Again, Sammy," he commanded. "Keep talking or whatever you're doing. I'll find you."

Dean stumbled forward and opted simply to crawl, figuring Sam was somewhere on the ground so the lower he was the more likely he was to hear the little guy. Plus, Dean wasn't sure he could remain on his feet as his head swam. The ground was rough, roots and small rocks dug into his knees and palms as he moved along the forest floor with his ears acutely tuned to anything that didn't sound like Bambi's neighborhood. Again, the muffled moaning seeping into his ears, making Dean adjust his track. He slid down another small incline and found Sam face down resting against a small stand of saplings.

His first urge was to scoop up Sam and shake him fully awake but something in the back of his head, words covered in dust and cobwebs, barked the word 'paralysis.' The kid had fallen farther than Dean and hadn't gotten up on his own. Just because he called Sam a geek didn't mean the kid was a wuss. The fact that Sam was still down meant he was injured worse than Dean. How much worse was unknown, but if the kid could not move on his own Dean knew he shouldn't touch him.

"Come on, Sam," Dean plead, gently stroking the bangs plastered to Sam's face from his eyes. "I gotta get you out of here, but we can't go until you get up."

Sam winced as a feeling, like fire, licked at his right leg. All of his muscles seized up. He tried to scream but the pain was so intense that his body locked up and froze him into stone. He could feel the air scraping down his throat and as he began to shake. He felt cold except for the intense pulsing heat, like electric shocks, racing from his leg straight into his stomach. That's all that existed in the world: the crippling throbbing in his leg and the tight, sharp stabs of pain in his throat.

There was another sensation, too. There was a hand, slightly warmer than his own skin, and trembling on Sam's shoulder. Although it was a gentle touch, for Sam it was powerful. It grounded him. Even thought the pain made him want to curl into a ball and shut out the world, knowing his brother was there by his side gave Sam a sliver of security. Dean always knew what to do when things went wrong, and considering he was laying face down in leaves with probably his leg half chewed off by a bear, Sam was pretty sure something had gone very wrong.

"Sammy?" Dean gasped as he noted his brother stirring. He placed his scrapped and bleeding hands onto his little brother's back. He could feel the shuddering rise and fall of Sam's breathing as he cried unintelligible. "Sammy, can you roll over? I can't move you unless you can move on your own first."

The kid was hurt, that much obvious. He was shaking, and it wasn't just from the cold. Not part of the boy was twisted in an obviously wrong way, but that didn't mean anything. From the lack of movement of Sam's leg, and the way it was kissing the large root sticking out of the ground, he worried if there was more than a bruise there. Seeing Sam in pain as he crouched beside his kid brother, Dean's head cleared enough for his thoughts to coalesce. They were hazy and dark around the edges, much like his vision, but his course of action was clear.

_Rule one: Take care of Sammy. Rule two: Get him to the lake so the rescue party can find us. Rule three: Get Sam to the hospital so a doctor can fix him. Rule four: Take Sam home… away from all these trees. Gotta get rid of the trees. That's the plan. Four rules; one goal: Watch out for Sammy. _

"D-Dean," Sam hiccupped as he wept. "My, my le-leg hurts. I think it's broken."

"You'll be okay," Dean promised breathlessly as he ran his hand through his hair.

There was no way Sam could hike out of the woods with a broken leg. He couldn't even turn over. He was just a scrawny 11-year-old, but Dean knew he couldn't carry him the way he had when Sam was a baby. Dean's own balance was too iffy to try and carry Sam in front of him. The only option was to haul the kid on his back, but with a broken leg and other limbs shaking with the pain, there was no way Sam could be trusted to hang on himself.

Dean's worry moved his internal dialogue to his lips without his notice as his mind raced to compose a solution. He spoke breathlessly as his hands worked on some automatic programming rigging the aluminum brace of Bobby's hiking pack into a backpack to carry Sam.

"Always need a plan," Dean muttered. "Gotta get you home. Don't worry, Dad. I got a plan now. I'm not gonna screw this up. I'll take care of him. I promised Mom the kid would only have scratches. She's gonna be pissed at me. Friggin' leg's broken, but I'll get him home. I swear I will 'cuz I got a plan now. I always told Sammy to have a plan; when you've got a plan, you don't hesitate. You know what to do. Have a plan, and you survived. When you've got a plan, you keep your brother with you, and no one can hurt him or take him away."

"Dean?" Sam murmured, hearing the disjointed and one-sided conversation going on over him.

"Sammy," Dean said you breathlessly. "You with me? It's gonna be okay. I gotcha now. You're gonna be fine. Alright? I'm gonna get you home, but I need your help, Dude. You read those books on First Aid, right? We gotta do something about your leg. You think about that while I get this harness ready. Okay?"

Sam sniffled and choked out an agreement as he started thinking outloud, giving Dean vague instructions to build a splint. Without fully understanding what he was doing, Dean took his little brother's guidance.

"I'm gonna take care of you, Sammy," Dean reassured him. "You're gonna be okay. I promise."

"Where's Bobby?" Sam asked in a shaky voice as he struggled to sit up, hissing and cringing with the pain of the movement.

"Uh, he's… not here," Dean said quickly, swiping tears from his eyes so Sam would not see them.

"Was it a bear?" Sam asked.

"A bear?" Dean repeated and shrugged. "Yeah, maybe."

_I shoulda read the stuff Bobby gave me,_ Dean scolded himself as he scrambled on the ground for several thin sticks the length of Sam's calf. _I read that story 'To Build a Fire' for school, or at least the Cliff Notes for it. There was a dog in that. Maybe if we brought a dog with us things would be better. I don't really like dogs, but the guy in the story had one. Wait. The guy died and the dog lived. Sammy wants a dog. He's always telling Dad we need a pet. I don't need a pet. Sam is kind of a pet, but he's more like a kitten. No, we can't have a kitten. I'm allergic to cats. I can't be allergic to Sam. No, Sam's more like a lizard, those little ones that darted around and get into everything and climb walls but not the kind that eat cats. Lizards eat cats, right? Godzilla's a lizard, and he could eat a mountain lion, no problem. _

_Was that thing that killed Bobby a mountain lion? No, couldn't be. It only had two legs. Lions have four, like dogs. Bobby is like a dog, and old, grumbling one with bad knees and a lot of bones buried in his yard. _

_Bones. Yeah, I saw a bones, or something that looked like bones in Bobby's yard this spring. That guy, Jefferson, showed up that evening and Bobby sent me home in a hurry. The guy had something in the bed of his truck—I saw the bloody tarp. That was the night Bobby moved that tower of cars with the crane. A month later and there was that big storm that washed out some of that area so he had to moved it again before it tipped. I saw a bone, as long as baseball bat, in a washed out pit. Sammy saw the tip of it. He got excited; he thought Bobby had a dinosaur in his yard since people find dinosaur bones in the Badlands all the time. _

_Only Sioux Falls isn't in the Badlands and that was no dinosaur. Or was it?_

_But if it was a dinosaur, why did Bobby put cement on its grave? Making a memorial? Here Lies Dino the Dead Distant Cousin of Godzilla… _

_No, it couldn't be a dinosaur. The only dinosaur at the salvage yard is Bobby. I don't know what that thing was. I looked at the morning after the storm, before Bobby flooded the spot with cement. Mom and Dad have no idea how easy it is to get out of the house without them hearing, but I had to look. I did it to prove Sam wrong… and to disobey them. Yeah, that was the real reason. They said I was grounded, but I hadn't done anything wrong and I wanted to see what that thing was. What the hell was it? _

That question had plagued Dean for weeks after he first saw it. He knew he definitely saw a bone. Not like a T-bone from a steak. Not a chicken bone from a carcass. Hell, it wasn't even some skeleton from a dog that got hit by a car. He didn't think Bobby was a serial killer—too obvious of a choice being such a recluse and getting into yelling fights with the sheriff's deputies (plus, the law was at his place all the time delivering wrecked cars after accidents). No, there was some other reason for that bone, and it wasn't human anyway. Finally, he had just stopped thinking about it by telling himself it looked like... well, a dinosaur bone so guessed maybe Sam got that right. Only now Dean was wondering. He vaguely recalled when he was a little kid and his dad told Big Foot was a myth. The only problem with that was the cut across his chest and down his arm wasn't caused by a myth.

"Dean?" Sam prompted. "What do we do now? What if that bear comes after us again?"

Dean looked warily over his shoulder and stared into the wall of greenery around them. He shivered as he considered Sam's question and realized he had no idea how to answer Sam, but he was just as scared as Sam… and perhaps a bit more so. Where Sam was afraid of a bad tempered bear, Dean knew there was something much more ferocious and terrifying coming for them.

_**oOoOoOo**_

* * *

**A/N:** More to come.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes: **Thank the ice storm for trapping me at my laptop on this miserable Sunday afternoon. You get a new chapter a few days early because of it.

* * *

_**oOoOoOo**_

The native's dark, amber eyes were solemn in the dreary morning drizzle outside the rundown diner where John dropped Mary off an hour earlier. Her companion's long, black hair was streaked liberally with silver, each strand seeming to have a corresponding line on his tawny skin.

"This is an old evil," Summer explained to Mary in his soft voice. "My people believe he was one of us many generations ago, but our lands were taken. He was a warrior, a protector of his people, who went mad after the cavalry raided his village and killed his sons. He sought his revenge by tasting their blood and was cursed by nature for it."

Mary nodded, accepting the explanation as it tracked with all Wendigo lore she recalled. It bothered her like never before how much she had forgotten. Just one year away from hunting at that life and the darkness it fought had slipped away like a fading dream. What hadn't left was the pit in her stomach, the one that told her danger was near.

"Bobby said he researched this area," she replied and hearing the accusation in her voice.

"This one was chased away from the mountains when I was a boy," Summer shook his head. "My grandfather told me of him for he was in the party that was sent to hunt him. My father said he was mad, but he just did not believe in my grandfather's stories. The hunting party lost one man that day, but the others could not bring themselves to kill another of our tribe. Instead, they warded the area, driving the evil one away. He remained banished from this territory until a man from New York purchased one thousand acres to the west."

Mary winced and hung her head. The news story over the winter bubbled up in her memory. A wealthy developer from the east coast had snagged a large portion of land that the state of Wyoming tried to take over as protected forest. A bidding war ensued and the private financier easily won the day. There were protests, she recalled, from native Americans claiming the land should not be turned into high end condos and ski lodges. At the time, she thought their angst was merely about age-old land claims. Now, she realized their outcry was for something far more desperate.

"He destroyed the warding symbols?" she ventured.

"Bulldozed them three weeks ago," Summer said. "I have been watching this area as best as I can ever since. I was not home when Bobby called me. I regret that I did not provide him with the information in time to save him."

Mary swallowed hard and shook her head.

"He's not dead," she said firmly, knowing that the worry in her eyes tagged that line with the phrase '_as far as I know_.' "So, where is this pilot friend of yours, and when can we take off?"

_**oOoOoOo**_

One hour later, John's lungs and legs were burning. He had rucked into the endless, rugged acres of tall hardwoods two hours earlier, just as weak rays of sun were starting to peak above the trees. Those anorexic beams didn't last long as thick flannel clouds rolled in once again and started spitting at the ground. Mosquitoes appeared and feasted on his exposed and sweaty skin. His chest heaved as he trudged forward and swatted at the pests.

The vegetation was all wrong but his mind kept drifting back to memories of the jungles of southeast Asia. The moist air and the incessant bugs were definitely related, he was certain. What was not familiar was the weariness in his limbs. The former marine did not consider himself out of shape. Sure, he didn't normally hiking 10 miles a day with a full pack anymore, but he was an active man. His job was physical, somewhat, and he had two young sons that he kept up with… usually.

The boys.

A knot twisted in his chest each time he thought about what they might be doing. He prayed (yeah, damn it, he still did that—how could he not after the miracle that returned his kids to him the previous year?) that he would hear them just ahead laughing and bickering without a care in the world. He was prepared to roll out some fabulous lie about getting time off after all and rushing to join them. Sam would be ecstatic. He had been begging John to take this camping trip since the previous summer when John first suggested it. Dean had never been too keen on the vacation idea. Life without a phone or a TV close by seemed uncivilized and torturous to his oldest. If an activity didn't involve cars, baseball, a movie or something where teenage girls were present, Dean's interest level was too low to measure.

That John had yet to hear a single human sound was not lost on him. He tried to stay positive—thinking about good outcomes kept his mind from developing tunnel vision. He might miss something important if he dwelled only on vicious and bloody thoughts, although it was hard not to go there. John had seen the work of a Wendigo before. It had been six years, but the look of agony and shock on the victim's face as he hung by his wrists in that cave stayed with John. The guy was dead for at least a week by the time John and Caleb found him. The guy had been missing for nearly three weeks at that point. Caleb, a friend of Bobby's, had needed a partner on that hunt and John was available. He didn't like hunting, but as long as it was going to possibly save someone and it involved a creature, he could hack it. It was the ghosts he didn't like. Knowing there was a hereafter was not so reassuring when it seemed not everyone made it there. Where they went once they were peeled clean of this world was another troubling question, so John preferred just to stick to killing things with teeth and claws that could bleed. He'd killed men in the war so killing a beast was hardly an issue. Killing men was hard and bothered him. Killing a vicious creature felt like redemption.

He shook his head at that realization and pushed himself harder. He looked his watch and compass again. He figured he must be nearing the spot Summer provided as intel for Bobby's first camping site. The trouble, John knew, was that there was a chance Bobby had changed his mind and gone to a different location. Or, that he and the boys might have spent a peaceful night and since moved on to another location. Summer wasn't clear on where that one might be. John figured as soon as he found the first campsite, he could then track them to the next. That thought brought him a sense of security. A firm location meant facts and facts led to plans. Plans let to rules and rules led to success. It was an infallible combination for John, an equation that had governed his life since he joined the Marine Corps at age 18. As long as he stuck to those thoughts, he knew he could handle anything in front of him.

Until he arrived at the burned out fire pit and the abandoned tent.

"Jesus," he gasped as he looked at the shredded ruins of the canvas tent and the scattering of white fluff from inside torn apart sleeping bags in the small clearing.

Strips of cloth littered the ground and in all the chaos, two backpacks rested unscathed near the base of a tree. The larger of the two was an army green canvas rucksack. It had been John's when he was in the Corps and got adopted by Dean when they moved into their home the previous summer. Since then, the bag that had survived a jungle war and travel across the Pacific and several cross-country treks, had taken a whole new beating after a single year of being treated without care or concern by a teenager. John had seen the bag on the floor of his kitchen more times than he could count, with unopened while stuffed full of books and untold numbers of homework assignments that only seemed to be completed after notes were mailed home from the school.

Beside it sat Sam's bag: a bright, glowing orange pack that was clean and pristine, although it had just as much use. John raced to open that one, and found precisely what he feared: All of Sam's proudly packed maps and books and his compass were neatly stashed inside. Along with it were the boy's extra clothes, a small pair of binoculars and a 35mm camera. A peek at the counter showed there 11 of 36 possible shots already taken.

"Sammy?" John shouted. His voice echoed and only birds answered with mocking caws. "Dean?"

Again, there was no response. John began to frantically scour the campsite for clues as to where they might be. The good news was there was no obvious sign of blood. Of course, the ground was soaked and there was not much sign of anything. Many of the footprints were obliterated (some by the rain, some by his own tracks and some by a massive foot too large to be human). The good news, he noted, was that the rifle Bobby had packed was missing as well. As far as John knew, Wendigos did not use mechanical weapons. They used their super speed and strength along with their claws and teeth. Guns wouldn't stop them, but they also did not interest the man-eaters. The gun had obviously been taken by human hands. Human hands that were still functioning and were attached to a mind that was acting strategically (at least a little). The smart money there was on Bobby, but in a pinch, John did not doubt his oldest would snatch the weapon. Dean was good with firearms—scary good to the point John had not told Mary they had a natural marksman in the family yet.

"Form a plan, Winchester," John said to himself as the lessons of his drill instruction came back to him. "Form a plan. Have some rules and stick to them."

John nodded. The plan: Follow the tracks to find the campers.

He cast his eyes to the ground and began to dissect and determine what happened at the site and where the feet that made the marks went to.

_Rule one,_ he told himself as he crouched closer to differentiate the prints,_ kill anything not human that gets between me and my sons. _

There were several sets of tracks. Bobby's were the larger of the three. Those headed southwest away from the campsite. Another set, slightly smaller, gouged the ground as those moving at a fast pace. A few steps ahead were even smaller ones, the toes just tapping into the soft ground showing those feet were also running.

So, Sam ran from the camp and Dean followed, John surmised. He wasn't sure if this was something to commend either of his son's for; they departed without Bobby. The fact they seemed to flee at a run made him think they were being chased but the majority of cloven-style prints, those of the monster, seemed to meander through the site as though it hung around and picked through their abandoned supplies before pursuing. The question was, why did Bobby go in a separate direction?

Distraction, perhaps? That made sense. He would lead the creature away from the boys… assuming he knew there was one. John feared the older man simply stepped away from the fire to take a leak and the boys fled in fear after hearing or seeing Bobby's encounter with the bad, bad ugly fiend.

_Rule two: Do not leave the woods without both of the boys. _

John made the mistake of relegating one of his son's as dead once before. He vowed he would not make that error again. His boys were close and one would not leave the other. Dean stuck close to his little brother and watched over him anytime he did not feel the boy was save. Sam's attachment to Dean was equally strong. He had fewer opportunities to look after his older brother, but the kid kept an observant eye on him and always seemed to know where he was. The Winchester boys were a package deal. That always made John proud and gave him renewed hope in that moment. Wherever they were, they were together. Strength in numbers.

_Rule three: The boys will leave the woods with me under their own power, or I will burn the whole goddamn forest to a pile of ashes._

John nodded firmly at that one as he grabbed both of their bags, stuffing Sam's into Dean's so he could carry both with ease. Leaving the forgotten supplies would make his own hiking easier, but he reasoned that if Mary got a possible line on where the boys were that perhaps the rangers could bring out search dogs. The boy's clothing would help them in tracking.

John looked again around the site and noted that the third bag of the party was missing. He found it odd that Bobby would take his bag if he was simply heading to the latrine. It would be equally strange for him to do that if he was locked in combat with a beast. He sighed.

_Rule four, _he swallowed hard as he realized he had another life in his hands,_ find Bobby… or his remains and burn them so his soul doesn't get stuck here._

John hung his head for a moment at the thought of finding his friend and neighbor torn to shreds somewhere in the area or hung up in a cave like curing meat. Bobby certainly knew the risks of hunting and probably expected to meet a blood and violent end someday, but he hadn't expected it this weekend. Not with the boys accompanying him. John knew his sons wouldn't take losing Bobby well. Dean especially. He had latched on to the junkman like a child does a security blanket, trusting him in ways that made John a little jealous some days. Despite those feelings, John did not wish the man ill. For Bobby's sake and that of the two boys who considered him to be family, John hoped to find the off-duty hunter alive.

But he wasn't willing to bet on it.

_**oOoOoOo**_

The day was both one of the longest and shortest Dean could recall. He felt as though he had walked for a week, but the light seemed to fail so quickly. It had rained off and on through the day. Dean was soaked straight through his clothing from it. There was a point when he worried Sam had peed all over his back when he noted his back was soaked as well, but he put that horrifying thought to bed not long afterward. Sam begged him to put him down so he could relieve himself. It was then Dean realized he was soaked in sweat from the exertion of the hiking and carrying is injured brother.

During their brief stops (Dean didn't dare rest long for fear he wouldn't be able to get up again), they took small swigs from the canteen in Bobby's bag. Dean had hacked the front compartment off the bag when he built Sam's harness. Although the straps for the pack were helping hold Sam in place when they walked, the surviving pouch had several ties on it that Dean was able to fasten into a sling to wear across the front of his chest. It dug into the deep cut he had there, but more important that a little pain was having some supplies.

Bobby's bag had luckily contained Dean's confiscated M&M and a few matches. There was also his silver flask. Sam suggested they could use the contents to disinfect their cuts and possibly start a fire with it when they stopped for the night. Dean muttered his doubt that anything that spent time near Bobby's mouth could fight infection and worried that putting anything on an open cut that could start a fire just sounded painful. He said it mostly to get a laugh from Sam. What he got instead was a 10 minute lecture of grade school chemistry and biology. Dean merely rolled his eyes and let the kid ramble. It seemed to calm Sam to do it. Dean, meanwhile, spent his time looking through the rest of the contents of the bag.

There was a pair of dry socks, which Dean threw back into the pack with thoughts of easing them into Sam's feet later if he got cold. There was a large knife, similar to the one Dean had carried when the trip started. Where his ended up, he did not know. Lost in the fall most likely. There was also a smaller Swiss Army knife, which just left Dean puzzled on why an Army needed a cork screw, and the extra bullets for the weapon Bobby had carried when he…

Dean pushed that thought aside and let his hand search the rest of the awkward pouch. His hand found the leather cover a book. He had seem Bobby looking at it before he left the campsite when they first stopped hiking the previous afternoon. Why he needed a camping manual had made Dean wonder, but it was when he had done his clandestine search for his CD player that his curiosity was truly piqued. He had peered at the book and felt his eyes grow wide. He saw many strange drawings and lots of scribbling—none of which he had time to read. But one of the drawings—well, one page of them—caught his eye. He had seen the same scratches in the dirt around the edges of their campsite. What they meant or why they were there was unclear. It was evident Bobby had done them. So as Sam rambled about First Aid, Dean flipped through the book.

What he read made his stomach flip and convinced him that either his head was messed up beyond repair… or Bobby's was. But crazy seemed to sum up the situation currently so Dean dog-eared the page and made plans to use what he read in it when they finally settled for the night.

They trekked onward for a while longer until Dean's legs began to shake so badly he could barely raise them to take another step. He settled Sam with his back against a tree for support. It was a pine of some sort so it gave a little protection if the rain started again. What interested Dean more was the soft ground in the area around them.

"Here," Dean said, shoving the half-empty bag of M&M's at his brother. "Eat something."

"Aren't you gonna have some?" Sam asked, trying to hand it back.

"I had a handful when you were taking a leak earlier," Dean lied.

The thought of eating, particularly anything sweet. His stomach was still unsettled and just the smell of the candy made him what to hurl. He handed Sam the canteen, flask, matches and the small bundle of fallen branches he found around their resting spot.

"Start a fire and have dinner while I try to see if the river is near here," Dean said.

"You're not leaving, are you?" Sam gasped, suddenly tense and quivering.

"No," Dean assured him. "Look, I'm feel like I'm gonna puke. I want to do that in private, okay? I'm just gonna walk over there for a few minutes to catch my breath and see if there is more water around here—that is unless you've changed your mind and think we should put that flask to the use it was intended."

"Don't go too far," Sam said but it came out more like a begging entreaty than a command from his brother the junior park ranger.

Dean nodded and snagged the supply pouch as he did so. Meanwhile, Sam lay on his side and scraped the sticks into a pile and gathered the fallen pine needles around them to start his fire. Dean hurried a few paces from their spot, to some scrub bushes and pulled out the book. He grabbed the hunting knife from the bag and flipped to the pages with the odd drawings. It took Dean a few tries to get the symbol he drew to look like the one in the book, but when the thought the he had it right, he did as the instructions stated and moved a few more paces away and drew another that was slightly different. He did this in a circle around their spot, returning to Sam just as the light around them started to fail. There was a smoky blaze going. Sam waved the smoke away as he coughed and rubbed his eyes. Despite the acrid cloud hanging around them, Sam beamed at his creation.

"Guess you didn't find a river with fish that just jumped out," Sam said as Dean dropped to the ground beside him.

"No, but on a better note, I didn't throw up either," Dean announced as he stripped off his flimsy windbreaker and stuffed Sam, protesting and wincing with the effort, into it. "Just wear this, okay? You gotta stay warm, Sam. I'm hot as hell from walking all day. You're not."

Sam stopped struggling and slipped his arms through the damp nylon pullover. It wreaked of sweat but it also settled some of Sam's shivers. There wasn't enough to the garment to do that so he figured it had something more to do with the fact that it was Dean's. The boys then fell silent for a while, listening to the hiss of the fire as it tried to take hold with the damp kindling they had on hand to feed it. Sometime later, Sam's head began to tip backward. Dean scooted closer to him, putting his arm around the kid and letting his head drop to Dean's shoulder. He could feel Sam shiver. Dean, too, was feeling the chill of the night set it, especially as the fire began to die. There was no more dry wood close-by, and Dean didn't have the energy or interest in scouting for more. As he watched the last embers ebb, he felt Sam's shoulders jerk and bounce.

"Are you laughing at something?" Dean wondered. He kept his tone testy for fear allowing any other emotion would break him.

"Yeah, I was thinking about Christmas morning," Sam replied through his chattering teeth.

"Christmas?" Dean repeated. "Okay, random."

"I was thinking about it 'cause I'm cold," Sam answered as he sniffled. "That made me think of Christmas morning. Remember? Dad told you to get up twice and when you didn't Mom told me wake you up."

Dean grunted and pulled the jacket higher on Sam's shoulder. He tightened his grip on Sam, lending him whatever body heat he still had to keep the kid from getting colder. He could feel heat coming from the kid, nothing intense, but enough to let Dean know his little brother was starting to run a fever. Whether it was from being cold and wet for a full day, an infection from his multitude of scrapes, his broken leg or a combination of all of those, Dean did not know. He was just certain that Sam needed to get out of the woods and to some place safe, warm and dry quickly. With darkness now shrouding them, there were many hours to go before Dean could even hope to move his brother again.

"You didn't even move when I snuck in your room," Sam shivered as he giggled. "I stuffed that snowball right down the back of your T-shirt, and you never suspected I was there until it was too late."

Dean scoffed. He had known Sam was in his room that morning. For a little kid, he had big, floppy feet that made a lot of noise even when he tried to be sneaky. What Dean hadn't suspected was that the kid was wielding a melting handful of snow that would end up sliding down Dean's back without warning. He shot out of bed as his spine froze and loosed a hot and loud mess of curses at his brother, who grinned while sprinting at top speed down the stairs just beyond the reach of Dean's hand. The family's much anticipated first Christmas together then started with Dean getting a lecture on his language. That was followed by Sam being scolded for his bonehead prank and their parents having a hushed disagreement in the kitchen on the best approach to punishing their children on the holiday.

"It's one of my favorite memories now," Sam continued solemnly. Dean shook his head thinking the kid was delirious from pain and fever. "Know why?"

"'Cause I didn't beat the snot out of you?" Dean wondered.

"No, because it was something I knew we would laugh at the next year," Sam answered through a mighty yawn. "And it was the day that finally proved to you that Mom and Dad didn't want just me back in their lives. I know you said you didn't think like that anymore, but you did, Dean. I knew you still worried they didn't want you back. So when they didn't cancel Christmas because you and I were fighting, and they didn't treat us any different from any other time we got on their nerves, you finally believed we were a real family again."

"Yeah, okay, Sam," Dean muttered as he stifled a yawn of his own. "Whatever you say."

He rested his head on top of Sam's as he marveled yet again at how smart his brother was. The kid got it right. That was the day that Dean decided to unpack his go bag—the one he kept stashed in his closet ready for a moment's notice to depart if his parents decided they didn't want him. Sure, they had welcomed him home and nursed him back to health after an accident sent him into an emergency, lifesaving surgery, but some part of Dean could not allow himself to believe their patience and tolerance of him would last. Until that day. His parents had been talking about and anticipating their first Christmas as a family since before Thanksgiving, but in a matter of minutes it had gone from a peaceful, snowy morning to a loud screaming fest with Sam and Dean angrily wrestling on the floor and calling each other less than loving names. When their father pried them apart and glowered at them with a stern and displeased glare, Dean had been certain this was the final straw. Their idyllic holiday had been ruined and it was his fault. They were going to send him packing that morning.

Only they didn't.

They lectured for a few minutes. They had their own whispering spat in the kitchen then tersely ordered the boys to get dress and shovel the front walk before breakfast. It was a normal punishment, and way more lenient than Dean expected. Remembering the feeling of realizing they weren't looking for an excuse to get rid of him had struck Dean silent for most of that day. He was humbled by it so much that before Bobby arrived for dinner, Dean stole up to his room and emptied the contents of his departure bag. That made it official in his heart and mind. He was home.

Sam watched the emotions and memories crashing in Dean's eyes. There was no other sign of them on his impassive face. The shifts and glints were subtle, but Sam was an expert at deciphering them after so many years. Feeling he had made his point, he nestled closer to his big brother, not finding it odd to do so. He may have snapped at Dean the previous evening about running to him when he got scared as a little boy, but that didn't change the fact that Dean was his safety zone. When they lived in Chicago, his big brother chased away bullies and kept the druggies from looking Sam's way. Dean fought off the nasty foster parents and even pushed away the overly strict social workers so that Sam didn't feel trapped.

Now, in the woods, with an angry bear having chased them from their campsite, Sam knew the safest placed to be was again with his brother. Dean was taking care of him, just like he used to do. Then a terrifying thought arced across Sam's fatigued and pain addled mind: What if something happened to Dean?

"Dean, you're not gonna go anywhere, right?" Sam asked suddenly, twisting as much as his sore body would let him so he could squint through the gloom to see his brother's face.

Dean was good at hiding things from people, but Sam could sometimes tell when Dean was deceiving him. His brother wasn't a liar, but he was prone to withholding information from Sam if he thought it would protect this kid brother. He was, Sam thought, too protective. Dean had a habit of still thinking of Sam as the baby he held in his arms and protected when they mysteriously found themselves far from their beds and on the steps of a fire station a thousand miles from their home after they were kidnapped. Sam tried repeatedly to convince his brother that he wasn't helpless or a baby, but it seemed that to Dean Sam would always be a little boy.

Not that his current woeful state was helping matters.

"I'm not leaving you here," Dean snapped. "I said I would get you home. Did you think I was lying?"

"No," Sam shook his head and felt his lip quivering again. "I just meant that I don't think you should go out looking for someone to help us right now—after I fall asleep. It's not safe to wander around here in the dark. You could fall down and hurt yourself. So, promise me that you're not going to go anywhere in the dark."

Dean sighed and pet his brother's head reassuringly.

"Get this through your head, worrywart," he said more kindly. "I'm not going anywhere without you. I told Mom I'd watch over you. I can't very well do that if we're not together, can I?"

Sam nodded but then shook his head. He was still hungry and quite thirsty. He was tired and confused, but even in that state he knew that having his brother stick with him until they both got out of the woods might not be the best plan. Dean was dead tired after carrying Sam nearly all day. They had trekked a long way, but Sam knew that Dean could have gone three times as far if he hadn't been burdened with hauling his little brother on his back. Sam didn't want to be left alone, but if being left behind so that Dean could get out and get help quicker was the answer, he would tough it out.

"I just meant tonight," Sam said as he began to tremble again with fear and cold. "After we wake up and the sun is up again, you should go on without me. You can get back to the trail and maybe find Bobby. Then you both can get help."

"Don't worry about any of that," Dean said, pulling his shaking brother closer. "I said I'm not leaving you and I'm not."

"But what if…," Sam croaked.

"I'm not leaving you," Dean repeated firmly. "Not ever. Not for anything, Sammy. Taking care of you is still my job. You understand me?"

Sam shook his head as fat tears caused by too many aches and emotions for him to register even half of them cascaded over his lids and down his pale cheeks.

"But if I die out here," he wept.

"You aren't gonna die," Dean insisted.

"But if…," Sam continued as he sobbed.

"Doesn't matter what happens, Sam," Dean said in a pained and hoarse whisper. "I'm not leaving you. I meant it."

_**oOoOoOo**_

The darkness and chill of the night wrapped its clammy hands around John as he sat beside a small campfire. The flames danced and crackled while flashing eyes of small critters flared in the distance only to vanish in a blink. A owl hooted not far off and the screech of what might be bats sounded on the otherwise still air.

Those were good signs for his own safety. When a Wendigo took up residence or traversed an area, all other living things seemed to disappear. It was as though all of nature knew the evil it represented and went into hiding until it moved on. Of course, that was not what John needed. He needed to find the thing so silence would have been a wonderful guide.

His afternoon was fruitless. He was able to follow the boys' tracks for a dozen yards then they too vanished. There were numerous bent branches in all directions, but there were no more footprints as the ground turned stony. There were no imprints to suggest their direction. Considering the harried and scattered directions the visible prints took, their flight from the safety of camp was frantic. It made John sick at heart to imagine their terror.

The terrain got iffy the further he hiked. There was a large ravine swallowing one side of the area and a gentle slow along the other. Seeing no obvious evidence of human travelers near either, John returned to the campsite and opted to follow what appeared to be Bobby's trail. After all, he reasoned, he did not know when the footprints of his sons leaving the camp were made. They might have been screwing around earlier in the day and those tracks had nothing to do with their absence.

When he found what looked like drag marks, he knew he was on a trail he should follow. What he would find at the end, he did not know and feared. Still, tracks led to facts and facts led to findings. He had rules and he would stick to them. So he found himself stopping as the darkness grew deep. He carved warding sigils in the dirt as Caleb taught and started his fire. He huddled in his field coat and hummed softly to himself, something he had not done in many years but began doing again after he started teaching Dean about cars a few months earlier. The kid disliked silence and seemed to fill any moment of it with the tapping of his foot, clucking of his tongue or humming of some tune. John smiled at that. He had been the same way as a young man. It had driven his mother and stepfather insane. It took him a tour in Vietnam for him to learn the value of quiet. While it was a good lesson, he hoped neither of his sons ever had to learn it that way.

He mused that his boys were not quite as different as many people thought. Dean was a bundle of energy and seemingly constant motion. He had been that way since he was in the womb, if John recalled his wife's experience during that pregnancy accurately. Sam seemed to possess an inner peace from the start. Mary had carried him with any of the aches or illness she experience with Dean. Even Sam's birth had been smoother and less taxing on her.

But Sam had a boisterous streak in him that made him difficult to over look. He could argue when he got a thought in his head and he would hold onto his position like his life depended upon it. He was determined and certainly thought he knew best once he made up his mind about something. He could be aloof and (in his brother's estimation) a little bitchy when he didn't think he was being heard. And when he got mad? There were few forces on the earth as volatile as Sam Winchester. He could go from sweet, smiling boy to human hurricane in the blink of an eye. And he did it without warning. At least his bother gave you signals the storm was brewing and about to strike, John sighed.

Still, they were a lot alike. Both had a simple kindness in their characters that was surely something grown from the marrow of their bones for they had known precious little kindness from anyone but each other for most of their lives. Each were sharp and seemed to latch onto any lesson swiftly. Sam just found gratification in demonstrating his knowledge while Dean seemed content to act as though he didn't care if anyone knew he understood. They also had amazing compassion for others and each other. It was rare for either of them to think about themselves first most situations. Dean's selfless bend was more obvious than his little brother's as he still wore the mantel of caretaker as his primary reason for existing. But Sam's concern for even the smallest of creatures would find the boy gathering spiders out of the basement to set them free before the boys were sent down there to clean up the storage room.

John shook his head at the odd duo who would carry on his name someday. He felt a lump in his throat as he prayed yet again that they would be found soon and without any harm. He was about to begin forming his plan for first light when the underbrush rustled to his left. He reached into his gear and pulled out two items. The first was a long machete. He had used it to hack through the brush during the day, but the blade was still sharp enough to take off a hand (or if he was lucky) the head of anything that got too close. He also pulled out a flare gun. He had initially intended to use it to signal his position if he found his boys and needed to summon assistance from the air. Of course, he reminded himself, flares were also incendiary, which made them too weapons against Wendigos.

He took up a defensive position with his back to the tree. He knew he had drawn the sigils correctly, but that didn't mean some scurrying critter hadn't obliterated part of one during its nocturnal wanderings. John kept his eyes sharp as he held the flare gun firmly in his left hand while steadying his grip on the handled of his machete. The trampling noise drew closer until finally it broke through the trees and stumbled into the firelight.

It was a man, covered in mud and blood, who fell to his knees at the edge of the fire. He looked up at John with watery and weary eyes. When he spoke, his voice was stronger than John anticipated.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I am damn glad to see your ugly mug, John," Bobby growled. "Tell me you got at least some piss warm canteen water. I'm sucking dust out of my saliva glands here, and we got a hell of a chore ahead of us tonight if we're gonna go find your boys."

John instantly reached for his canteen and handed it to the man who took a health swig from it as he ran a scraped and bleeding hand over his mud spattered face.

"So they're not with you?" John asked anxiously.

"I told them to run," Bobby said. "Damn thing got past my warding symbols. The boys must have trod on one of them without me seeing it. This is one pissed off SOB. Had me in his lair all trussed up like a deer he was ready to gut. Damn near sawed my own wrists off breaking free."

"Where is it now?" John asked, tossing items back into his bag. "I've got three flares."

"I left it hemorrhaging in the cave," Bobby said, his chest heaving as he struggled to his feet. "Found an ax on the floor of the cave. Took a swing and near severed it's right arm. Broke the damn ax handle on the process though. Figured it might bleed out but didn't to take the chance so I crawled out looking for a sharp rock. I could smell your fire from two clicks away. You burning skunk weed?"

John shrugged. He was. He hadn't intended to do that, but he found the stuff along the trail. It was dry and started the blaze going easily. It also smelled like month-old, hot, fermenting garbage. He knew his clothing and hair wreaked of it, but his new scent was not a concern for him. His wife was miles away hopefully organizing an aerial search. Besides, she was contemplating divorcing him because they had a boring diner. The stench of his clothing was hardly important.

"Where did you send the boys?" John asked as he slung his pack onto his shoulder.

Bobby winced as he shook his head.

"I just said run," he confessed. "That was last night. I was out cold until maybe three hours ago. I ain't seen or heard from them since Godzilla and I did our little Fandango after I sent the boys to beat feet out of camp. They could be anywhere."

"Then we need to head in different directions and start screaming their names until they respond to one of us," John nodded.

Bobby grabbed his shoulder firmly and shook his head with similar determination.

"No," he commanded. "We gotta make sure that critter is dead first."

"Like hell we do," John shouted. "You said you wounded it, and it's bleeding to death. Good. Let it die slowly and painfully. I'm going to get my sons."

Bobby wheeled in front of him faster than John anticipated. He fastened his hand around the man's arm with an vice-like grip that would surely leave a bruise by morning's light.

"They're your family, I get it," Bobby snarled. "They may not be my blood, but they're as good as in my heart. You don't think I want to raze this entire mountainside to find 'em? I do, but there's a job here. This thing is gonna kill again if we don't finish it. Not tomorrow. Not later when it's convenient for your schedule. Now."

John shook off the man's hand and glared menacingly at him. He and Bobby were always civil around the boys, but it wasn't always that way. They rubbed each other the wrong way often enough over the years. John could respect what Bobby did in his secretive life as a hunter, but that didn't make the man virtuous or saintly. It also didn't give him any insight into what John's priorities were. He had something Bobby did not: his own family. They needed him in that moment. Someone else could worry about the big bad lizard man in the cave, and John said so.

"You and me, we're the someone else in this scenario," Bobby said. "Unlike the next damn fool who might wander across its path, we know what it is and how to kill it. Maybe if someone had done that years ago, we wouldn't be having this nice little pissing match. Now, I know all about feeling like I had to protect my family. I had a wife once, John. Notice that word? Had. If someone had properly exorcised that damn demon who took my wife rather than just expelling it from its last victim, she might still be with me. But she ain't. I won't do to someone else. I won't leave a mess to destroy someone else when I can prevent it. It's called compassion. You might try to find some."

"Go to hell," John snapped, but he had dropped his bag near his feet and was not longer moving away from the fire.

Bobby scoffed and shook his head. He kicked at the dirt then straightened his dirty hat.

"A wounded Wendigo is worse than a healthy one," he said. "The average one just kills what it needs to survive. A hurt one kills out of pain and vengeance. This one ain't dead yet. We kill it then we go looking for the boys. Now, I want to find 'em and bring 'em home, too, but you gotta understand this. We're in my world right now. You got that? My world. My rules. That means, we need to kill this thing. After that, we go find your boys. I know leaving that for last goes against everything in you, but know this. No matter where they are, they get safer the moment that thing breaths its last. Now, are you coming with me? Or are you gonna be your typical jackass self and do things your way?"

_**oOoOoOo**_

* * *

**A/N:** More to come.


	7. Chapter 7

_**oOoOoOo**_

The cave was dark and dank, even with the hastily made torches John and Bobby carried. John also had his flashlight, but Bobby liked the protection fire provided. The hunter lead the way, having escaped from this place a few hours earlier. The deeper they got into the hole in the rock, the stronger the stench of blood and rotting flesh became.

"Lovely smell," John noted with a quiet growl.

"I forgot to tell you," Bobby said, swinging his torch far to the right to illuminate a shadow-filled alcove. "I wasn't the only guest at the inn."

On the floor of the cave, bathed in the flickering light of Bobby's torch, sat three bodies in various stages of decomposition. The bodies were all at or near the bloat stage and maggots squirmed liberally over them and out of the mouths, ears and noses. John felt his stomach flip as he covered his mouth and nose with his forearm.

"Where did you leave… it?" John asked as he pulled his eyes away from the casualties.

"Deeper," Bobby said jerking his chin as a loud and anguished screech shredded the quiet of the cave. "Get that flare gun cocked and ready, Johnny. We're about to have company."

When the creature rushed forward, it was nearly invisible for its speed and the cloaking effect of the darkness. John pumped one shot directly into its chest then threw his arm over his eyes as flames engulfed the shrieking beast.

_**oOoOoOo**_

Dean's head jerked up as did Sam's. His heart hammered against his ribs and a cold sweat trickled down his neck. Sam pressed his shoulder into his brother's chest and shivered as his body tensed.

"What was that?" Sam whispered in a quavering voice.

"Uh… elephant?" Dean offered.

"There are no elephants in the forest," Sam argued.

"Maybe one ran away from the circus," Dean suggested as he felt a prickle along his neck as though someone was staring at him.

Wild ideas whirled in his mind. Elephants might be roaming the woods, vicious and rampaging elephants. He should have covered Sam in mud, like Arnie did in 'Predator' because that hid him from the creature's super heat-sensing vision. He really should own a watch, one with a glow in the dark face, so he could know what time it was.

"It sounded like that bear, didn't it?" Sam remarked.

"No," Dean lied. "The… bear sounded different. That was… higher in pitch so whatever that just was, it's smaller."

Sam nodded, taking the speculative lie as fact, and rested his head against Dean's shoulder again. His breathing evened out and he drifted off to his fitful rest again. Dean continued to scan the darkness and found himself doing something he had never done before: praying. His silent pleas grew more adamant as the sensation that he was being watch strengthened. However, there was another feeling. He turned several times, straining his neck to look behind the tree that served as their shelter. Although he saw nothing, Dean couldn't shake the feeling someone was standing behind him.

**oOoOoOo**

Morning arrived dry and bright. How and when he got to his feet again was a mystery to Dean.

He did not recall tying the straps that helped hold Sam in place together again. He did not recall hoisting his brother from the ground, and he did not recall making a conscious decision to start walking. He just found himself trudging and stumbling slowly, following the river as best as he could without getting too close to the edge. His mind kept drifting and his gaze sliding sideways. He knew he was not walking well or straight. The thought of falling into the water while carrying Sam terrified him. If he dropped the kid, if he was swept away by the current, Dean would lose him and then what the hell would be the point of getting out of the forest alive anyway? Life was already confusing not being the one who was in charge of Sam. A life with no Sam in it surely would be pointless. Dean had precious few memories of his life before Sam was born. It was as if his life started the moment he was officially Sam's protector, the day he awakened to find himself far from home while holding his crying baby brother and no other family anywhere to be found. It only made sense his life would end the moment his brother would leave his life. If Sam got pulled out of the equation, there was no reason for Dean to go on.

Knowing Sam's safety was literally on his shoulders (and his back, his aching muscles reminded him), Dean continued forward. His ears picked up all sorts of strange noises. He wondered if they were actually strange or if there was something wrong with his hearing, like whatever was wrong with his balance and eyesight.

_Might just be regular birds and Bambi style friends_, he told himself. _That or another walking pissed off Jolly Green Giant… Of course, that thing I saw (Predator's cousin or something) wasn't precisely green. He was grayish. Sam thinks it was bear. Ha! That was no friggin' bear. It didn't even have fur. Or did it? Maybe my head is more screwed up than I thought from whatever I hit when we fell. Guess I got my bell rung pretty good—like what happened in that squeeze play a few weeks ago when I stole home. Doc said I didn't have a concussion that day, but Mom thought he was wrong because I told her I was watching birds out the window but she couldn't see any. _

_Mom. _

Dean felt a knot form in his throat at just the word. She was at home, worried about them. It turned out for once that all her concern was justified, and she didn't even know it. Sitting in the backyard with her seemed like years ago not just two days. He choked quietly on the sudden constriction of his throat and gut as he had a flash of sitting in a strange room surrounded by firemen who kept asking him his name and where lived. He knew that was just after he and Sam were kidnapped from their home in Kansas. He had tried so very hard to remember his phone number and his parents names, but for some reason he could not. That morning, as he tried to fight back tears, it seemed to him that the last time he had seen his parents was such a long time earlier but he knew now that it had been only a matter of 12 hours. Longing for those you loved certainly did make time move differently.

Thinking of his mother home and missing them made Dean shudder. She'd fall apart if they didn't come home as planned. She nearly fell to pieces just knowing they had their bags packed for a short weekend trip. Dean clenched his jaw tightly and blinked hard and fast to keep tears out of his eyes. He had promised her they would be back, and he meant to keep that promise. He didn't like it when his mother was sad. It hurt him to think of her crying. And if they didn't come back, she'd cry harder than he'd ever seen her do, he was certain of it. When those tears fell, he was also certain they would be his fault. He gave her his word so not coming home would be failure. After all, Sam was her baby; she needed to look after him. Dean reminded himself that it was his job to get his little brother back home to their mother. He and Bobby were supposed to take care of the little guy and now…

Now, Sam was broken and Bobby was gone. Whatever had killed their surrogate uncle was still out there. Dean could feel it in his gut, a cold and tight knot that said the thing was going to try to hurt Sam. He was certain he could feel it tracking them, stalking them, and all Dean could do was taunt it by continuing to walk. No, he decided, there would be no easy sit-down meal of prime Winchester ass for this Hundred-Acre Wood monster. He laughed dully as he realized what he was thinking. Monsters were real. That's what he'd been reduced to: believing in campfire stories.

_Awesome. Me and my brother are going to be chowed on by a bald Big Foot. _

"Well, I hope you get friggin' indigestion and have diarrhea for a month afterward," Dean muttered aloud to his unconscious brother. "That'd serve the son-of-a-bitch right, Sammy?"

Sam whimpered from his spot huddled against Dean's back. He gripped as tightly as he could to his brother's shoulders. Each step Dean took felt like razors slicing through his leg. The splint Dean had fashioned at Sam's direction to protect his aching leg was pinching him in spots and the rough bark from the stick supports was digging into swelling limb. His foot was crushed in his boot as that swelled as well. He felt nauseated with each bump and jostle. He had stopped speaking to Dean as he feared he would vomit if he opened his mouth. He could taste blood from where he bit down on his lip and cheek to keep from screaming. He chomped tightly again as he leaned his head forward lurching in pain.

"Sam," Dean hissed. "I know it hurts, but stop biting me. Did you become a vampire all of a sudden? That's my friggin' neck your chewing on. I swear if you give me a hickey…"

"Sorry," Sam wept. "I didn't realize I was doing it to you."

Dean nodded and sighed tiredly. They had been walking (stumbling more accurately) for two hours. Nothing in the landscape looked familiar, which Dean took as good and bad news. The good parts were they were making progress to somewhere. The bad news was he didn't know where that somewhere was and it certainly wasn't the trail that brought them to the campsite and they did not appear to be reaching any open meadow like he hoped. He also could not hear the river any longer. He had thought about following that, as well, but decided against it at the last minute. Rivers meant riverbanks and slippery rocks. He knew he couldn't risk losing his footing near water when he was carrying Sam. The kid couldn't walk so there was no way he could swim. The coolness of the water might help with the aches in his leg, but that would only last until he drown from not being able to keep his head above water, Dean reasoned.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean relented as he trudged forward at a deliberate pace. "You're been really tough so far, you know that? Little, wussy kids would be blatting and crying for their mommies, but you're hanging in there. That's brave. Really brave. I'm proud of you."

"You are?" Sam questioned, biting his bottom lip as he continued to cry and hoped Dean didn't notice. From the sweat rolling down his neck and soaking through his shirt, Sam hoped he wouldn't notice the tears.

Dean wasn't big on giving compliments so when he did, they were cherished gems for Sam. He knew Dean was proud of him usually. He was sort of a one-man cheering squad for Sam his entire life thus far, but when he would take the time to actually say the words out loud, Sam always felt like he'd won first prize in something. Dean, for all his grouchiness and quirks about not liking school or being told what to do, was not the bad seed and troublemaker so many people thought him to be. To Sam, he was nothing short of a hero—the superhero kind that could save the world and would never ask for a thank you because he would think it was just his job to do it.

"Yeah, little man," Dean huffed. "Real proud. Dad will be, too. Just wait until I tell him how tough you are. Know what? I think he'll start getting intimidated by you. Imagine that, Badass Marine intimidated by little Sammy. If you don't want to go to bed at 9, you give him your game face and wham, no bedtime for Sam."

"I don't want to be like that," Sam said as pain shot through his leg and into his stomach. The sourness in his throat made any more talking unwise. Instead, he concentrated on just breathing slowly through his nose.

"Don't worry about it, Sammy," his brother assured him breathlessly. "Dad will love it. He'll brag about you even more to everyone at the garage. Not only is his geek-boy son another Einstein, but he's also a badass mother fucker, too. Roughed it in the woods after falling off a cliff and made it out of the woods with a messed up leg without falling apart even once. You'll be a legend before you even get to high school, Dude. The girls, I mean like even the seniors, will be throwing themselves at you—just like they do to rock stars."

Sam coughed out a weak chuckle and scrunched his eyes shut as another wave of pain rolled through him. He settled his head on Dean's shoulder and let himself drift off to sleep on his brother's persistent reassurance that everything was fine and they would be home bragging about their adventure soon.

_**oOoOoOo**_

The trees thinned out and a vast sea of pale green sprinkled with white flowers appeared in front of the boys. Dean strained his eyes to make sure he was not imagining the sight.

"Sammy?" he asked in a hoarse and tired voice. "Can there be mirages when it's not hot and there's no sand?"

Sam did not respond. His head lolled bonelessly on Dean's shoulder as the kid remained passed out. He had been quiet for a while, Dean knew. The only thing that kept him from worrying about his little brother more was the constant rush of warm air from the kid's breathing on his neck. Dean's legs were rubbery. They trembled with every step. The gash in his thigh was leaking again. He could feel the blood trickling freely over his knee cap. His lips were rough and dry, much like his throat and mouth. He had let Sam have the last of the water just after the kid woke up for the day. Since then, Dean had been hiking and hoping for the rain to return. Licking the sweat off his upper lip was not quenching his thirst. So when the meadow appeared, he squinted, looking for the lake or pond he had seen on the map. He thought it was just there in front of them. It looked real and without Sam to tell him it wasn't, Dean decided to trust his eyes.

"Found the spot, Sammy," Dean croaked breathlessly as he fell hard to his knees. "This is a good place. They'll find us here. Or… you know… we can build a house. Kill some trees to do it. That'll be fun."

He pulled his strained shoulders out of the harness and eased Sam clumsily to the ground. The kid yelped and curled in on himself. The boy's eyes remained welded shut as he whimpered in his exhaustion. Dean pet the kid's head, pleased he wasn't burning up any worse than he had been. Then he got to his feet and started walking in the direction of the water. He felt like he was in one of those cartoons where the land stretches unbelievably far into the distance as it seemed with each step the water got further away.

He looked backward over his shoulder and saw Sam wasn't more than 10 feet from him. The depressing realization that he had not moved far or fast dropped Dean to his knees again. Tears of frustration and defeat welled in his eyes as he collapsed to the ground. The bright sunshine shown down on him but did little to warm the coldness of his skin. It also assaulted his eyes, making them sting and his head pound mightily. Rather than cry out like a little baby, he concentrated on his breathing and the sound of his heart beating in his ears. The longer her listened, the more that sounds arose. He could also hear a bee buzzing nearly and the rustle of the grass and flowers on the light breeze. Eventually, a droning noise joined the sounds of nature.

Like the mysterious lake he could not reach, Dean wondered if the sound simply existed in his imagination.

_Rule Five_, he told himself, _act like help is coming. Maybe there is no sound, but it's real and you don't wave at it you're throwing away Sam's chance to get home_.

He raised his hand and flailed it as the sound, still distant but growing closer, continued. He knew there was likely no way an airplane—even a low-flying, small one—would see him laying in the grass. Getting it's attention was hopeless. There was no flare gun. No signal fire. No…

He dipped his hand into his blood-soaked pocket and drew out the broken CD. It was a shiny, half-circle, like a mirror. _Light travels far_, he told himself. _Stars are millions of miles away but we can still see them. _He turned the broken disc toward the sky and tipped it back and forth again and again. When the sound of the plan glided by but did not make a return pass, he dropped his head to the dry ground and groan.

"Sorry, Sammy," he whispered as he closed his eyes.

_**oOoOoOo**_

Mary's feet were on the ground before the rails of the helicopter touched down fully. She was swiftly followed by two EMT's and Summer. The blades of the whirlybird whipped the wildflowers of the meadow into a frenzy. Mary sprinted across the field and fell to her knees at the teenager sprawled on his back and oblivious to her arrival.

"Dean," Mary said urgently. "Open your eyes for me. Can you hear me? Dean? Sweetheart? Wake up. Come on."

"Mom?" his rasped.

"I'm here, baby," she said. "Tell me where you're hurt."

Dean's eyes slid lazily to the other face beside her. It was deeply tanned with many folds around the eyes. He had long dark hair that whipped behind him in the breeze. Dean's lips started moving and he heard himself speak without realizing he was expressing his thoughts.

"Are we in '_Dances With Wolves'_?" he asked vacantly.

Mary sighed and shook her head, a weary smile crossed her lips as something between a sob and a chuckle spilled out.

"Honey, whatever else you're about to ask, please stop," Mary commanded. "Tell me if you are hurt."

Dean twisted to the side clumsily and looked to his right. Sam was there with another man in a flight suit looking him over.

"Sammy?" Dean called out forlornly and tried to move to crawl to where he should have been but was prevented from doing so by his mother. "Mom, he's hurt and… It's his leg, and he's cold. He wanted water, and I tried but I just couldn't go any farther… I…"

"Okay, shhh," she said quickly as she squeezed his hand. "I know. He's right here, Dean. The paramedics are taking care of him. He's okay."

"No, he's not okay; he broke his leg," Dean whimpered. "I tried to carry him, but I wasn't able to keep going. I was too tired and… and… I'm sorry. I promised I would take care of him, but he got hurt. I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry," she hushed him through her own anxiety filled tears as she kissed his forehead. "You didn't do anything wrong. You did a good job, honey. Now, just take it easy. Everything's going to be alright."

"Bobby's dead," Dean blurted in a pain-filled, choking sob. "I think the… it… got him. He said to run so we ran. He didn't follow. It grabbed him. I ran after Sam so I couldn't help him. I'm sorry I ran. I'm…"

"No, no, hey," she soothed. "Sweetheart, Bobby's not dead. He's fine. He's with your Dad back where you boys started hiking."

"He is?" Dean asked dragging in a stuttering breath.

Mary cupped his tear-moistened cheek and stroked it slowly.

"Yes, he's alright," she assured him. "He's been worried about you and your brother; he and your dad have been looking for you two."

"Dad's here?" Dean asked anxiously as he craned his neck to look around the field.

"Not right here," Mary explained.

Her son's eagerness, to the point of need, to see his father radiated from his cloudy green eyes. Her thoughts flashed briefly to her worries that her marriage was a shame. The boys were her life. Whatever they needed, she would do for them. If that meant she and John needed to fake a loving relationship, then Mary vowed that they would do it.

"Your Dad is with Bobby," she continued. "They're with some park rangers and have been looking for you two since yesterday."

"Is he pissed off?" Dean asked. His tone was more curious than afraid or worried.

Mary shook her head and stroked his cheek.

"Only at whatever ruined your camping trip," she answered truthfully then tossed in a strategic partial truth to add some comfort. "We heard over the radio that a hunter came across it and killed it early this morning. Okay?"

Dean offered her a skeptical and scrunched brow but nodded all the same.

"Now, this is Summer Proudfoot," she said as the EMT waved her to join them with her youngest as his immediate evaluation was complete. "He's a friend of Bobby's. He's going to look after you for a few minutes. Just hang on while I check on Sammy, okay?"

She turned to the next spot where the grass was matted down. In the masking tendrils of green, her youngest laying on his back with an odd bundle of sticks tied to his shin. He was just coming around and starting to whimper fitfully.

"Don't let them hurt him more," Dean insisted as his eyes rolled back in his head and his lids fluttered shut again. "I tried to help him, but I couldn't make it stop hurting. I'm sorry."

**oOoOoOo**

The second helicopter landed in the open stretch of field. As it touched down a second crew of rescue personnel jumped out and charged forward with plastic kits marked with red crosses. Summer propped Dean up and got him to his feet. He was a bit limp and mildly disoriented as the scout walked him across the space to meet the oncoming medics. Dean paid the new arrivals no mind. His eyes were focused on the helicopter that had landed practically on top of them. Part of his mind was beginning to panic at the thought of getting into the aerial vehicle, but the part of him that was too tired, sore and hungry to walk out of the forest on his own told his fear to shut up. One medic pulled him toward the chopper while others sprinted off in another direction.

Across the meadow, Mary clasped her youngest son's hand. Tears sliding off her face plummeted to his cheeks as she knelt beside the young boy. An IV with fluids was sunk into his arm quickly by one medical tech and his leg quickly braced by another, who then began assembling a stretcher to carry the child. Suddenly, Sam stirred, his yowl of pain cut through Mary like a saber, slicing through her heart and leaving a hole in her.

"Sammy," she huddled close to him, stroking his dirty face. Her tears mixed with it and made small mudslides. "I'm here, baby. Just relax. You're gonna be okay. I know your leg hurts, but do you hurt anywhere else?"

"Mom?" he cried.

His breath came in sharp, hissing gasps as he shook his head and grinded his teeth. He directed them to the obvious injury, his leg. After his first bout of howling over it ceased, he answered a few questions about his other aches—offering up quick yes or no answers as a sheen of sweat began to form on his face. This was a good sign, according to the medics, because it meant he was not too dehydrated to sweat. The minutes ticked by with the medic's stabilizing him for transport, and his crying over his own pains leveled off. As his chest shuddered with his hiccupping breaths, he opened his puffy eyes and looked at his mother with a desperate expression.

"Just keep looking at me, okay?" she soothed him as she caressed his face. "I'm going to be right here with you. I've got you, Baby. You're going to be fine."

"Where's Dean?" Sam sobbed as if suddenly becoming aware of his surroundings. "Mom, we can't let him die."

"No, honey, of course not," she said petting his hair. "Don't worry about your brother. He's fine."

"He was gonna die if I did," Sam began to sob hysterically. "I told him to go, and he wouldn't. He wouldn't go!"

"It's okay, Sammy," she assured him. "No one is going to die. We'll all be home soon. I promise."

"No, you don't understand," Sam screamed in a hysterical and strangled voice hoarse from exhaustion and fear. "Dean said he would die. I told him to leave me so he could get out, but he said he wouldn't leave! He said if I died he would, too. He can't do that. I can't let him do that! Mom, don't let him!"

"Sam, listen to me," Mary commanded. "You need to calm down. Dean is fine. He's right over there waiting for us. He's just got a few scratches and a little bump on his head. He's been hurt worse stealing second base at baseball practice. He'll be going to the hospital with us to make sure he's okay. We need to take care of you, too. After that, we are all going home. Just relax. I'm here. I'm going to take care of both of you. Everything is going to be okay."

Sam continued to sob violently in physical and emotional pain, like a toddler having a tantrum. Mary looked at the medics who told her the reaction was expected considering the boy's pain, fatigue, dehydration and hunger. They explained that likely as soon as he heard his mother's voice, a sure sign of safety and comfort, whatever walls of fortitude got him through this ordeal had come tumbling down. They reassured her that their initial triage only turned up the broken leg and the simple bruises and scrapes. There was no indication of internal bleeding or a head injury. His leg no doubt extremely painful but did not look displaced. The doctors at the ER x-ray it to be certain and then would set it properly with a cast within the hour. Like Dean, none of Sam's injuries were life-threatening. The important thing was to get fluids in him before putting him on the chopper, just as they were doing with her other son. That would help stabilize him and get him on the road to recovery much quicker.

Mary nodded, numbly, then looked up to see Dean across the field. He sat on the floor of the chopper being tended to by another medic. His legs dangled toward the ground and were being swung back and forth the way a small child would in an overly large chair. He appeared uninterested, dazed even, at the commotion around him.

At the chopper, Dean was oblivious to the attention he was receiving from across the landing site. He was barely giving notice to the attention he was receiving from the blond, burly medic examining him.

"I'm Daniel from Sheridan," the tanned and muscled man who stood before Dean said as he placed a bandage on the open cut on Dean's forehead.

"I'm Dean from… not really sure where some days," the teen introduced himself as Daniel from Sheridan tilted Dean's head upwards then shone a penlight in his eyes. "Is my brother okay?"

He had distantly heard Sam crying on the ground as the medics walked him to the helicopter. Dean tried to go to him but was ushered away and handed over to the custody of Daniel from Sheridan, who kept his body blocking Dean's view of his brother's triage troop.

"The little guy is in pain, but he's going to be okay," Daniel offered in a confident voice. "We're taking very good care of him, and your mom is right there with him. Did you put that splint on him?"

Dean nodded then wished he hadn't at the world got blurry and tipped on its side. He felt himself listing that way as well, but Daniel's hand clamped onto his shoulder and held him in place.

"Sammy helped," Dean said. "He read a book on First Aid. Told me what to do."

"Well, you two make a good team," the medic replied. "My little brother and I can't even wash a car together without messing it up or fighting."

"Sam said his leg still hurt so I didn't know if I did it right," Dean muttered.

"Well, I can hear my buddies on the radio over my earwig," Daniel assured him as he tapped the ear piece feeding him information. "They're impressed with what you put together between that pack you rigged and the splint. The sticks probably gave the little guy a few scrapes, but it did the important work of keeping the bones in place. So that was good job by both of you. Now, you just said you don't remember where you live. Is that right?"

Daniel used his pen light and checked the reactivity of the kid's pupils. They were sluggish and one was slightly larger than the other—expected signs for what appeared to be a nice concussion. The blackening lump on just above the kid's left temple was the impact site. He was gaining a nice cheek bruise and shiner from it as the blood drained to the lowest accessible areas. However, his speech was relatively clear and mostly coherent so the medic doubted there was anything more he needed other than fluids, sleep and some sustenance.

"No, I know where I live, just not sure where I'm from precisely," Dean replied feeling oddly detached from his body. That happened the moment he heard his mother's voice letting him know everything was going to be okay. It was like something in him just stopped holding on so tightly, and now he was about to float away. "There's a lot of white-out on all my school records, stuff like that. Hell of a story actually. I'm thinking of selling it to Hollywood; maybe get a chance to appear on Oprah and whatever."

"Okay," the medic continued as he chuckled. "So where is it that you live?"

"In Sioux Falls, South Dakota," Dean said through a yawn. "It's the house that looks like church at the end of Benson Road, just past Singer's Salvage Yard. I'm gonna rebuild myself a car there, you know."

Daniel chuckled and nodded, making mental notes of his patient's condition.

"Okay, can you tell me your date of birth?" he asked.

"I always remembered that even when I forgot everything else: January 24, 1979," Dean replied. "Wanna know my driver's permit number? 5-2-5-3-4-1-2-7. Just got it this spring. I'm an awesome driver."

"Just like Rain Man?" Daniel smirked.

"Better," Dean assured him, his eyelids growing heavy. "My little brother's way better than Tom Cruise, and I'd never let him get hurt." The tears bubbled in his eyes and a quiet sob darted out of his chest. "I mean, I didn't mean for him to be hurt. He fell. I tried to grab him, but I missed."

Daniel patted the kid on the shoulder. The teen looked like hell. He had a nice concussion, an infected laceration across his shoulder, pectoral and upper arm that was deep but too old at this point to stitch. There was also a clean, two-inch gash in his thigh. The blood on his pants (and the lack of tearing of the cloth in that spot) indicated he got punctured from something in his pocket, likely during his fall. Daniel pried the shiny, shattered disk from Dean's fingers, seeing the telltale smudges of rusty red on the smooth, sharp fracture and felt he had the culprit in hand.

"Don't kick yourself, Dean," the medic noted. "You splinted his leg and carried him all the way here where we could find you. Now, I got another question." He held up the broken and bloody CD. "Did you use this as a signal? Did you flash it like a mirror to a plane that was flying by?"

"Yeah, why did I make it crash?" Dean wondered as he nodded.

He figured the thought that he might have caused a plane to crash should bother him more, but he was too tired to care at that moment. Using the CD as a signal just seemed like a good idea at the time. He remembered something from book that his mean and ancient history teacher, Mr. Phelps, made him read after getting in trouble for referring to President James Buchanan as douche bag while the class discussed the early political decisions that helped trigger the Civil War. The punishment for his comment was to read a story about the U.S Cavalry. It mentioned how the soldiers could communicate across long distances using mirrors to flash signals. Dean figured trying it with the CD was worth a shot. Not like the CD could ever be useful again anyway seeing as it was snapped in half.

"No, there was no crash," Daniel informed him. "That idea to signal the plan using this was damn clever. You mind if I keep this? I teach a class in survival skills, and this is a hell of a prop. I never thought of using a CD like that before; you might have just helped me save lives, Dean."

"Huh," Dean shrugged listlessly as he watched a crowd of people approach (or maybe it was just two or three; his vision was off—there were three Daniels in front of him currently). "Yeah, you can keep it. It was my dad's. He loves Led Zeppelin. He's gonna kick my ass for taking that without asking and then kick it again for breaking it. I'm gonna be mowing the damn lawn every day for the rest of the summer."

"You'll be fine; besides, something tells me that he'll forgive you," Daniel winked.

"You know about things in the forest?" Dean asked, latching onto something Daniel had just said. "You ever seen a bald bear that walks like it's only got two feet?"

The medic smirked and patted the teen on the shoulder.

"Kid, I've seen all sorts of crap that didn't make sense until I got home and got my head on straight," he assured him. "Now, you ready to ride the sky?"

The answer was a solid no, but Daniel ushered him further into the helicopter. The blades of the chopper were starting to slowly turn, creating a gust of wind that rippled the grass in the meadow. Countless movies and TV shows with the walking wounded or the hero charging to the transport out of the hot zone filled Dean's mind. He grunted at the comparison. It was so less cool in reality.

Daniel moved away to help bring the other patient forward while the pilot turned around and strapped Dean into his seat. Dean cocked his head to the side and stared at the man (well, men, there were three of him—all identical and a bit blurry). They were strikingly familiar in their leather bomber jackets, aviator glasses and short brown hair with just the slightest flecks of gray showing. They each smiled at Dean and clapped him on the shoulder lightly while inquiring if the belt was snug enough. Dean nodded as he continued to stare.

"Hey, pilot guy… uh, guys," Dean remarked groggily talking to the fuzzy trio in front of him. "Anyone ever told you that you all look a lot like Han Solo and Indiana Jones?"

"Yeah," the _pilots_ grinned, speaking in a single, deep and very familiar voice. "I get that a lot, kid."

_**oOoOoOo**_

Mary spent her time at the hospital walking back and forth between two curtained-off ER bays. Neither of her children were in danger, but both were in need of care. Fortunately, their exposure ailments were not severe. Each had a touch of hypothermia from being outside in the rain for so long. They were also dehydrated and in need of food. Dean assured his mother that he was fine and did not need a doctor or the needles in his arm. He only promised to lay still and submit to the medical exam when she agreed she would stay with Sam.

The younger boy was much more pliable and agreeable than his older brother. Of course, Sam was also on some powerful painkillers. The ER doctor ordered muscle relaxants for him to facilitate the setting of his leg. An x-ray proved the paramedics who carried him to the helicopter correct. Both his tibia and fibula were cracked clean through but they were not displaced. He simply needed to get home to his own bed, have a warm meal and get plenty of rest. The doctors assured Mary that once the fiberglass cast was dried, he could be released.

Mary stepped away from Sam long enough to have a discussion with Dean's doctor. The news there was good. The concussion was mild. His cuts were not badly infected and his other aches were simply bruises, contusions and over exertion of his muscles. He too simply need a warm meal and a goodnight's sleep. Mindful of Dean's need to know Sam was being watched and due to Sam's loopy state, she asked Summer to stay with her youngest while she signed Dean out. The native American hunter waited peacefully by the bedside, watching the child with interest. He was a curious creature to Summer. He saw the boy before him but he also saw an aura, a chimera of sorts showing him the child was once fated for something more. It was a strange sight to behold, seeing the child and the man he might have become all in one odd blaze of light. Those visions did not happen much for Summer, so when they did he paid attention to them.

He was pondering what this one might mean when the child in the bed stirred and looked to him with glassy eyes.

"Your mother will return shortly," Summer assured him. "You and your brother will begin your journey home within the hour."

"Why isn't Dean watching me?" Sam wondered.

He could not shake his worry about his older brother. Fearing for Dean was not normal for Sam. There was always some concern, but Dean was the one who was the constant in Sam's life. The younger Winchester had only once contemplated the possibility of life without his big brother once previously, and that was when Dean needed emergency surgery a year earlier. Since then, Sam felt a growing protectiveness over his brother. Not that Dean would allow him to act on it, but that didn't stop Sam's belief that he, too, could look out for someone. He felt he owed that to Dean for all the times he had done so for his little brother. Which was why their exchange in the woods worried Sam so much.

"Do you have a brother, Mr. Proudfoot?" Sam asked groggily.

"I do," Summer nodded. "He left me to be with the great spirit long ago."

"Left you?" Sam repeated then swallowed as his hazy mind grasped the meaning. "You mean he died?"

"Saving me," Summer nodded solemnly. "My elder brother and I were crossing the river in late January. The ice was very thin. I fell through. He dove in after me and dragged me to the bank. The chill took hold of his bones and brought a great sickness. He died 10 days later. I was sad but also very proud. He gave his life so that I might live. That is a rare and precious gift."

Sam blinking stinging tears from his eyes as he shook his head. He did not think someone dying was a gift at all. It sounded more like punishment or something gone very wrong. He mumbled words to that effect to the old man. He shivered until he felt Summer's weighty and calloused hand pressing comfortingly on his head.

"As someone so young, you would think so," Summer said softly. "You are more worried about losing the ones you love rather than what you would gain by their sacrifice. I saw the lengths your brother went to bring you to a place of safety. You are fortunate to have such brother, and he is equally luck to have you. Your affection for him is deep and pure. You make a good team."

Sam shook his head and rubbed his tired and watery eyes.

"I wanted Dean to leave me and get help," Sam said in a tense and small voice. "He said he couldn't go, but he could have. He just wouldn't. If I had been hurt real badly and died, then I'm afraid…"

"He brought you to a place of safety," Summer offered.

"I know," Sam nodded. "I knew he would, but if I had been hurt too much, Dean was… He said he…"

Summer sighed and nodded. For as muddled and muted as the aura of the younger child was, the elder boy's burned hotly, like a beacon. The teenager had a purpose, one that Summer felt would bring him great pain an angst in his future if he did not ready his spirit for the challenges. Summer did not doubt both boys were pure of heart, but elder one was on a dangerous path. Considering the shielded appearance of the younger boy's essence, it appeared his older brother would tread his treacherous trail alone. This might preserve the life force of the younger boy, but it would not spare either of them the pain and heartache the Lakota shaman could see in their future.

"My people's wisdom teaches that in any great endeavor, it is not enough for a person to depend solely on himself," Summer explained. "This is a lesson you must teach your brother. I see that his choice to remain at your side you worries you. That speaks well for your heart, but perhaps you should think of it differently. Your brother's speaks both about his spirit as well as your importance to him. That should bring your peace for it shows wisdom and compassion from someone who will always put others before himself. You do not see it yet, but you will be much like him. It is my experience that such people are rare. I am honored to know both you, Sam Winchester."

"Thank you, Mr. Proudfoot, but make sure you don't say any of that to Dean," Sam counseled groggily. "He doesn't believe it when people say nice things like that about him and it makes him not trust them very much."

"He trusts you," Summer nodded. "You will need to be the one to tell him of these things in a way that he can accept. Also let him know that you would do well to stick closely together."

_**oOoOoOo**_

* * *

**A/N:** Final chapter up next.


	8. Chapter 8

**oOoOoOo**

The sun played hide and seek high above the forest as Bobby listened to the report from the hand-held radio provided by the park rangers from Hardy Station who had joined he and John to recover the victims in the cave.

"Thanks, Summer," he said into the receiver. "I'll relay the message. Over."

John jogged up the recently worn path where they had led the rangers to show them the bodies of the three hikers they found in the lair. John's face was stony and grim after watching the rangers bag the dead men.

He never liked jobs where the victims were still fresh. It reminded him too much of combat. While he weathered that well in his 20's as a soldier, it was a different story in his 40's. Then he was a single guy who watched out for his fellow soldiers as best he could. Now, he was father whose job it was to protect his family. So when John looked at those bodies, he didn't see college kids. He didn't see anonymous victims. He saw someone's kids. He saw his own kids. Bobby's terse order from the night before on their responsibility to take care of the problem echoed in his mind. While it wrenched his heart to stop looking for his own sons, seeing the aftermath of someone else neglecting to deal with this monster previously was a strong and bitter lesson.

Bobby saw the disgust on the man's face as he approached. He quickly ended John's misery with the details the man needed and wanted to hear.

"The boys have been found," he said, placing a steadying hand on John's shoulder. "They're okay."

"They are?" John asked, needing absolute confirmation so that his heart could start beating again. "You're certain?"

"Yep, just got a message from Summer," Bobby assured him. "Mary's with them. They were air lifted to the hospital in Sheridan."

"Hospital?" John gaped. His heart chilled and a cold shot of lightning streaked down his spine. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing serious, ," Bobby explained in a calming tone. "They're getting checked over at the hospital. Looks like the worst of it is that Sam's got a broken leg. They're both a little roughed up from the exposure, but otherwise they're okay."

"Sam's hurt?" John asked breathlessly. "How bad is his leg?"

He pictured the boy's face, usually so wistful in his expressions, twisted in pain. He was a still a young boy with very little meat on his bones, but he was far from fragile. He often wrestled with his brother and still occasionally sparred with him when Dean practiced his Krav Maga techniques, a martial art he learned while living in the seedier parts of Chicago as a means to keep bullies and thugs away from his little brother. Dean never opened up on his brother or used most of his skill, but he did not give the boy a easy time of it either. Sam was tougher for it. The thought that anything actual broke the kid pained John immensely.

"It's a break so it's painful but not fatal," Bobby counseled seeing the anguish on the father's face. "They'll put him in a cast, he'll be fascinated by the x-rays. By tomorrow, he'll start considering becoming a doctor when he grows up. You can relax, John. Sam will be hobbling around showing you how much he can take care of himself without help in a few days, guaranteed. He just needs a couple Tylenol and a good night's sleep in his bed, then he'll be good as new."

John nodded, accepting that information. He didn't like the thought of his youngest son hurt in anyway, but a simple broken bone could be set and would heal. John drew a slightly more easy breath.

"What about Dean?" he asked, noting Bobby's relieved posture and easy voice tone, which told him the worst of the news had already been delivered.

"He's a little shitfaced loopy from a mild concussion, but Summer told me that he was talking movie heroes with his pilot," he said. "The idgit's grinning like he got to ride in the Millennium Falcon with Indiana Jones. He'll be begging to drive home himself home in an hour I'll bet."

John sighed and leaned heavily on a tree for support. His knees felt weak, and he was fairly certain he was ready to empty his stomach on his shoes as a dizzying relief washed through his bones. He felt Bobby's calloused hand grip his should for a second. He lifted his head to see the glisten of tears of respite from worry in the man's eyes. John nodded and took a steadying breath.

"My boys are okay," he repeated as fatigue suddenly sucked at his bones. "Thank God."

"More like thank Jimmy Paige and Robert Plant," Bobby said but opted to leave off an explanation as John did not react to the remark. "Let's finish up here. You'll be home soon enough."

John nodded and sighed with relief.

"Next time you take them camping, let's make it a state park—something smaller than a few hundred square miles of nowhere—with nothing more vicious than a bunny in it, okay?" John offered as an olive branch rather than apologize for his earlier rants about priorities to the hunter.

**oOoOoOo**

The hospital in Sheridan, WY, was a sleepy place during the warmer months. The ER staff was more apt to have excitement during the winter months when tourists invaded. When local businesses made big bucks renting snowmobiles and four-wheelers, there was rarely a dull moment. The SPOREs (Stupid People On Rented Equipment) could be found in high numbers from November through March. Having patients in the ER for an apparent bear attack was big news and spawning rumors throughout town.

Mary saw a news report from a local station tying the death of hikers in the park and the fortunate rescue of the boys to local rumor about cursed land. The reporter did not follow up on that issue but instead provided an update on the controversial new housing and resort development on the far side of the park. She shook her head as she continued down the hallway carrying the bottle of water she had purchased from the cafeteria.

"Mary?" the unexpected male voice called to her.

She turned to see her landlord, the man she knew as Mr. James Smith. The short and energetic man who was rarely around in Sioux Falls suddenly appeared in the hallway making his way toward her quickly.

"Mr. Smith?" she gaped.

"No, no," Gabriel/Smith shook his head. "I've told you to call me James."

"Right," she said distractedly. "Uh, what are you doing here?"

"A have a friend in Sheridan," he explained, jerking his thumb vaguely over his shoulder. "I was visiting her, and we heard about the big rescue going on. We heard on the news that some folks from Sioux Falls were mixed up with the Big Foot story. Thought I would drop in to see who. You and John? Is he back there? Is he okay?"

"Uh, no," Mary shook her head. "I mean, it's not John. Bobby Singer was camping with the boys, and they got separated. Sam fell. He broke his leg. He's going to be fine. I was just getting him some water."

"How awful," he said compassionately. "Are you okay? Did you drive here?"

Mary nodded as they walked back toward the procedure room where Sam was waiting with his brother. Smith followed, taking the water from her as he elbowed open the next set of heavy doors.

"You know what, when he's ready to go, let me drive you back to Sioux Falls," he offered. "You're too tired to make that drive on your own, especially with two shaken up kids—unless you want Dean to drive."

"No," she shook her head instantly. "Dean's exhausted, and he's got a concussion. He can't drive. He can barely walk straight right now, but I couldn't impose on you. I was just going to wait until John and Bobby finished with the rangers. They'll be back here in a few hours I guess."

"Seriously," Smith said. "It's no trouble. Help is available is you just ask for it. Now, you have my new number, right?" He grinned and pulled something from his pocket that looked like a child's video game. He caught her eye and grinned as he waggled the device. "This is Simon—at least, that's what the guru's at IBM named him. It's a personal communicator, basically a phone and an address book all in one. They'll be all the rage soon, just not this version. By the by, if you've got stock with these folks, dump it now. Insider tip, IBM pretty soon is gonna stand for '_I'm Broke Man_.' I got this as a starter 'cause I know a guy, but I'll be upgrading, trust me. Any-who, if you need anything, give a jingle. You and your family are my best tenants after all. You really sure I can't give you all a ride?"

Mary sighed. She was weary and worried. She used to go days without sleep, mainlining caffeine as she traveled from job to job. Life in a home with a bed and a regular schedule was making her soft. Worrying about her family and taking care of them was harder than the cold and heartbroken existence of a hunter. Hunters, she had realized, had nothing to lose. Through forces and circumstances she still did not understand, she had her children back and was part of a family once again.

"Actually," Mary sighed. "I would appreciate it if you could take us home. I have a car. I just… need help."

"Then help you shall have, m'lady," he said, nodding and bowing slightly.

Gabriel looked at her intensely for a moment and felt a sinking in his chest as he saw past the fatigue and the worry. He saw past the pale skin and lovely features. He saw inside, to the toxic darkness that taken root.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "You seem… under the weather as well. You did note that you're in hospital, right? Maybe you should have a doctor give you a once over before you leave."

"No, I'm fine," she insisted. "I've just been worried about my sons."

He nodded acceptingly but despised himself. His ability to stay off his angelic brothers' radar would be compromised should he step in and use his divine powers to help this family directly again. He could move about at will with no real worries, but he had interfered enough with the Winchesters. Stepping in to save this woman from the deadly disease budding just beneath her skin would compromise his cover and bring attention to the family—the kind he had risked his wings to keep away from them. The worst of the trouble, the demonic ruffie the youngest avoided, took him off the board for the grand epic of annihilation planned for mankind at his brothers' hands. However, Gabriel learned recently his solution was only a half fix.

Even though Sam Winchester was not imbued with the demonic powers Azazel's souped up baby formula would have given him, the angel now saw that his own intervention had done nothing to change the older Winchester boy's fate.

Dean Winchester's sole trigger making him the archangel Michael's vessel was the act of being born. Rumblings among the eastern and old world gods, the posse Gabriel hid among using the alias of the god Loki, was that the big prize fight was still on. Granted, Heaven seemed to have the edge as Lucifer's true vessel would not be a player. But that didn't mean the grand finale was canceled. No, taking the younger Winchester out of the pending brawl pleased the heavenly host as it gave Michael all the advantage he needed.

The seals still needed to be broken. Demon ploys were underway to spring the first demon, Lilith, from her spot deep in the pit of Hell. She wasn't ready to reach for daylight yet, but like knowing which chess moves must be made to win the match, Gabriel could see it happening in the next few years. The seals would then be under fire. For the end to begin, the first domino needed to topple. Gabriel briefly considered worsening Dean's head injury, drop a little blood clot in his coconut and get the kid to drop dead here in the hospital. The only trouble was, once his soul was freed from his body, Heaven (and the corrupt hierarchy running the place) would be able to find him. That would result in resurrection and probably put Gabriel himself back on the radar.

No, the trick was to let the kid live and just hope that the righteous man stayed out of Hell so he could never shed blood there. As far as Gabriel knew, there was only one way to get Dean's soul to Hell: a crossroads deal. At first, the archangel thought the Winchesters were making a mistake hiding the world of the supernatural from the boys. Now, it seemed like a stroke of luck. In this instance, ignorance of the temptations of Hell would serve to protect Dean.

Or so the angel hoped.

He realized, too late, that he erred in keeping the boys together all those years ago. It was a sympathetic mistake, born of his own loneliness away from his warring brothers. The night he lifted infant Sam from his crib, he instinctively grabbed Dean. Gabriel now wondered if dear, old, divine Dad was pulling strings even then. Whatever the cause, the elder Winchester son grew up raising and adoring his younger brother, sacrificing for the younger boy and developing a palpable streak of devotion that was the foundation for the Righteous Man. The kid was schooled in adversity and sacrificed everything for the brother he adored. He had a sense of duty and obligation that was far larger and stronger than his teenage body.

Gabriel hesitated in his refusal to heal Mary Winchester of the cancer now growing inside. On the one hand, doing so would keep her in her son's life and alter her to any invasion of a red-eyed salesperson offering delights for a simple 10-year pay off. However, healing her would also act as a beacon to Gabriel's brothers and allow them to find the Winchesters. This woman, the one whose heart Gabriel broke when he stole her children and then restored it when he messed with a photograph allowing her husband to find their children again, would have to discover and fight the deadly disease on her own. The angel felt wretched resigning her to what was likely going to be a swift and painful death once the menacing cells were belatedly discovered.

"Well, you need to take care of yourself if you're gonna keep up with those two," Gabriel/Smith said. "So, I'll go fill the tank and be ready whenever you and the gruesome twosome are set to leave."

Mary handed him the keys and nodded her thanks. Gabriel smiled broadly to her and headed toward the parking lot. Before reaching the doors, his path was blocked by an aged native American who looked at him with knowing eyes.

"Hey there," Gabriel nodded. "Nice work with the big rescue, Chief. Good thing for my star tenants that you had friends who fly the friendly skies."

Summer did not move as Gabriel attempted to bop by him. He stood with his arms folded blocking the angel's exit.

"You may know the Great Spirit, but you would do well to remember the wisdom of Black Elk" Summer said profoundly. "However,. The power of the world always works in circles."

"Ah, the mighty circle," Gabriel scoffed. "I'm not a fan of it. What's wrong with parallel lines that never intersect. There's beauty in that symmetry. No conflict. No dissection. Just smooth sailing. I mind my business; you mind yours. Peace and tranquility all around."

Summer shook his head solemnly and offered a pointed and sad gaze to the angel.

"That which began must one day end," Summer prophesied. "Like the circle, all beginnings will return to themselves. No person, no creature, no power may prevent this. The Great Spirit is mighty. The destinies it decrees are like water. Whether falling from the sky or carving a canyon through immense and impenetrable rock, they always find a way to arrive at their destination."

His knowing stare unnerved Gabriel for a moment. The angel swallowed hard and resisted the urge to snap the man out of existence. Instead, he turned on his heel and walked out of the hospital with a scowl on his face.

**oOoOoOo**

Gabriel pulled the Impala, graciously brought to the hospital by Summer, to the front entrance. Mary pushed Sam in wheelchair as Dean shuffled along beside her, deeply subdued. She wondered if her first-born's docile demeanor was due to his ailments, his fatigue or if something else was eating at him. With Dean, she could never be certain. His expression, hollow and vacant, narrowed and turned hard as he looked at their car and driver

"Why is he in Dad's car?" Dean asked in a low voice. "He shouldn't be the one driving that car."

"I explained that already, sweetie," Mary said kindly, rubbing his back. "Remember? I told you that Mr. Smith was in town and heard what happened. He offered to drive us home. If he didn't, we'd have to find a hotel room and stay here for a while because I am too tired to be driving you boys anywhere, and your father and Bobby are still busy with the park rangers."

Dean's stern gaze did not relent or shift until he cast his eyes down on his little brother. Sam was slumped in the chair, his head resting on his shoulder as the pain medication placed him in a mild, coma-like sleep. This was a good thing in Mary's mind because the Impala, while in much better condition than it was in recent years, still needed new shocks. Any bump on the road was going to be keenly and painfully felt by her bruised and broken baby.

"I can drive," Dean said, predictably.

"Right now, you can't remember a conversation we had 10 minutes ago, honey," she soothed him. "What I need you to do is help me get Sammy to lay down on the back seat. I'll sit with him back there, and you can ride up front."

"I can ride in the back with Sam," Dean offered.

She paused, expecting the objection. She pet his cheek lovingly as she shook her head.

"Dean, you've taken care of him enough," Mary said. "Let me do that now. I'm the Mommy here, okay? You get settled in the front then get some rest."

"But...," he objected.

"You've got a concussion," Mary said. "Sitting upfront will help you from getting car sick. I need your help and cooperation, Dean. Do this for me, and we'll be home before you know it."

Dean nodded although he did not agree. Still, through the haze filling his brain, he could see the sadness in his mother's eyes. He also saw weariness and worry, buckets of worry. He nodded slowly and achingly as a knot twisted in his chest when he could not think of a way to make either of them go away. Sighing, he helped his mother slide Sam, with his casted leg, into the back seat where she could cradle him against her for the drive. Dean reluctantly climbed into the front passenger seat and cast a wary glance at their driver.

"So, this is pretty cool, huh?" Gabriel grinned. "We're road-tripping—us. Kind of feels… exciting. Here's a little secret for you, Dean-O: I've always wanted to drive this car."

Dean said nothing. He continued to stare, glazy eyed at the man.

"Ah, going through one of your fabled and celebrated mute periods, gotcha," the angel winked and put the car into gear. "I think I'll enjoy it."

**oOoOoOo**

Bobby received another message from Summer just as he and John started back to the ranger's station. The boys had been discharged and were on the road home with their mother.

"Your buddy say if Mary was mad?" John wondered warily.

"No, why?" Bobby asked.

"I took her on a date that didn't sweep her off her feet," John shrugged. "I was just curious if I was gonna need to start bunking on your couch."

"You two having problems?" Bobby wondered.

"I didn't think so, but apparently I get a lot of things wrong," John shook his head. "She's got some idea in her head that we're not… together really. I don't get it. Maybe she just is too used to instant results. I spent a decade following up leads on the boys so I understand that if you really want something, you've got to pay a lot of dues and expect it to be hard and disappointing sometimes. Mary? She thinks if it's bad you just kill it and move on to the next thing. Dean's a lot like that. Give him instant results or you've lost him."

"Yeah, they're both romantics at heart," Bobby quipped but then shrugged because the sarcasm was actually quite accurate he realized. "Other than being a crappy date, what else did you do wrong?"

"No idea," John shook his head. "Hell, I can't remember what we did on our first date. I thought I knew, but that was wrong too. I'm not sure what must be harder: Finding a new relationship or convincing my wife of 20 years we don't need to start over."

Bobby grunted. Marital bliss was not a subject he was schooled in. His wife was long gone, and he hadn't had anything close to a long-term relationship that was successful in ages. There was one woman, the widow of a friend in Nebraska, who was in the picture a few years earlier. But that never went anywhere. Ellen Harvelle was a spectacular woman. She was smart and feisty, and she knew about hunting. Her husband, Bill, had introduced her to that world and then let it take him from her and their young daughter eight years earlier. Even though he and Ellen grew extra close a few years after his death, it just seemed weird. Bobby wasn't interested in being a father and Ellen had a young daughter. Also, he couldn't shake the feeling that it was plain wrong to have more than friendly thoughts about his friend's widow, which was why Bobby stopped. There was still a lingering tension between he and Ellen whenever he stopped by the roadhouse or when she called asking for advice for another hunter. But that didn't make their interaction a relationship, and it certainly didn't give Bobby any insight into John Winchester's marriage.

"I guess you're screwed," the hunter offered bluntly and received a chuckle from his companion. "Oh, and in case you're curious, I ain't interested in dating you or getting you as a roommate. So here's my advice on your love life: Just do whatever you need to do or say to her to get back in her good graces. Better do it quick while she's in a compassionate frame of mind."

"You mean use this situation to my advantage when she's feeling vulnerable?" John remarked.

"When you're a jackass at heart, you gotta use every trick in the book," Bobby nodded. "Trust me on that. I speak from experience."

John snorted his partial agreement. He and Bobby were a bit alike, and they certain cared about some of the same things. The difference was, John knew, in their execution of their plans and desires. Bobby had a few years on him. The guy also had half a lifetime of watching the unspeakable ruin lives of innocent and unsuspecting civilians. That gave him a long view of life and a unique perspective. John, too, had a lot of seasoning in his past, but Bobby had found a Zen spot in the chaos of life. Not that John would acknowledge realizing that. Letting his kids adopt the guy and welcome him into the family was as close to doing so as John could manage at this point.

His greater concern was his relationship with his wife. Mary could be determine and adamant—enough that she could exhaust a Marine. Her decision to take the boys home herself was a prime example. If it was anyone else, John would have objected to her heading home after everything that happened. Two days of searching with no sleep and probably nearly no meals—all following a full day of worry and an 8-hour drive to reach the starting point for the search—would have put even the best trained Marines down for the count, but not his wife. The hunter in her was able to go several days without sleep noticeably altering her functions. Food and all other life needs were on hold when the boys needed her. He did not doubt she would handle the long drive solo without any issue. Which was why he was gratified to see the car parked alongside the house when he arrived back at the old church turned home in Sioux Falls many hours later.

Dusk was just brushing against the landscape as Bobby pulled to a stop beside the former church. John did not invite him inside as he figured Bobby was obviously coming to see for himself that the boys were okay. The drive back from Wyoming had been quiet, but not the tense quiet that often existed between the two men. They were just tired and worried about their family. John accepted that Bobby was a member of his family. The boys adopted him when they met him, and the junkman did the same to them. Family was family regardless of what the law or blood tests might say.

The two men entered the house to find it relatively quiet. Mary stood in the kitchen loading the dishwasher. In the room just beyond, they could see the boys on the couch. Dean sat in the far corner with his bare feet propped up on the coffee table (completely in violation of a house rule). Sam sat beside him, leaning on his big brother for support. The younger boy's legs stretched the rest of the length of the sofa. One of his legs was propped up on a pillow and encased in fiberglass from the just below the knee to where his toes branched off his foot. Both were asleep, their heads resting against each other.

"Good timing," Mary said wearily. "You can help me wake them up and get them to bed. Sam will be more comfortable in his bed than he will on the couch. Plus, I don't want Dean feeling like he has to stay with his brother all night. He needs rest, too."

She nodded firmly to her husband and Bobby, an implied order to get moving toward the living room. Sam needed to be carried up the stairs, and Mary did not have the strength to put up with any resistance from Dean if he tried to assist her. Without needing more instructions or discussion, John walked to Sam. The youngest Winchester was clinging to Dean's arm. The older boy's arm was draped across his little brother in a protective manner. Dean's head was listing sideways, cheek resting on the top of his Sam's head. It was both a picture of contentment and a snapshot of the near-catastrophe of their lives.

John felt anger boil in his gut seeing how bruised and scraped his sons were. The hollows in their cheeks and dark circles under their eyes spoke of deep pain and too many hours without sleep. They appeared in even worse condition than John found them in Chicago, where they had led a meager and neglected existence at a threadbare orphanage. The reason for the new worn and battered appearance of his sons was obvious: terror. John flushed with anger. He felt should have been there, with them, protecting them, but yet again when his boys needed him he was gone. As he gazed down at his youngest, looking both pale and frail, he heard Bobby rousing Dean.

"Wakey, wakey, Princess," the hunter said in a gruff voice that still managed to convey a heartfelt affection. "Your momma wants her sofa back."

"Huh?" Dean stirred and looked at both men for a moment like he did not recognize them until he shook his head mildly. "Bobby?"

The relief was evident even in Dean's quiet, hoarse tone. He blinked several times, looking between the two men and offering his father a more casual nod.

"I know," Bobby grinned. "I'm a dream come true."

"Wow," Dean scoffed, quickly recovering from his raw emotion to crawl back into his sarcastic swaggering armor. "Talk about waking up to an ugly sight. Anyone ever tell you you're a picture of loveliness? If they did, they lied."

"I'll make sure my agent updates my glamour shots," the man growled. "Get up so your daddy can put your brother to bed. The kid's gonna be even more sore tomorrow if he sleeps like this."

Mary smiled at the man's choice of words. It was a lie. Sam would be no more sore than he already was if he remained in place. The boy would likely sleep just fine cradled under his brother's protective wing, but the move was for the good of both boys. Mary knew, as Dean nodded and rubbed sleep from his eyes, that he accepted Bobby's assessment. The grizzly hunter's understanding of her oldest was rivaled only by his compassion for the teenager. Bobby understood, even before John and Mary had, that the key to nearly everything with Dean was Sam.

"Sammy," Dean said jostling his shoulder slightly to wake his little brother. "Dude, get up. You're cutting off my circulation. My arm's gonna fall off."

Again, Mary smiled at yet another smooth and loving lie. She could not, would not, communicate with her boys that way, but if that's how the men in their lives needed to be with each other, she would allow it… for now. If the lies someday became destructive, that would be another matter, but it was certainly not an issue to tackle at this moment.

Sam's eyes fluttered open, the hazy look of his medication dulling his gaze.

"Dad, Uncle Bobby? When did you get here?" he asked. "We got chased by a bear, and then I fell down. I lost my backpack. I don't have my compass or my book or my… anything anymore."

"Don't worry about it, Sammy," John assured him as he gently lifted the boy up, carefully supporting his injured leg as the young boy reached his arms around his father's neck to hold tight. "All that matters is that you're home."

Sam then started rambling to his father about falling down a hill, being lost but assuring him that Dean said Sam was brave. Then the young boy began wondering aloud if the movie 'Predator' was filmed in that forest because it looked familiar. Rather than wait for a response to any of that, he started asking if his father if he thought Bobby ever ate animals while they were still alive. Finally, through a yawn, he asked if ketchup had magical properties. John said nothing as he carried the boy up the stairs, simply cradling the child in his arms and saying a silent prayer for his safe return.

He settled Sam in his bed, propping his leg up on a pile of pillows. He turned on the fan in the window to take the stuffiness from the room. Sam watched him through heavy lids but continued to fight sleep. John perched on the edge of his bed and brushed his long bangs from his eyes.

"Time for a haircut, kido," he said quietly.

"No," Sam rocked his head side to side on his pillow. "It's fine. Did you see the bear that chased us? Mom said a hunter shot it."

"Yeah," John nodded. "A hunter got it. I'll understand if you don't want to try camping again."

"No, it would be okay," Sam yawned. "I mean, as long as you are with me and Dean and Bobby. Mom, too. Bobby's good at fishing, but he can't cook too well."

"Okay," John chuckled as the boy's eyes fluttered shut.

He sat quietly with his youngest, staring at his features and noting how much he had changed in a single year. He had grown a few inches in height (and his hair a few in length). His features were more defined. The dark hollows that had once resided under his eyes and the sickly thin appearance he sported when John found the boy in Chicago was gone. His skin had a healthy glow and he no longer looked like a walking skeleton. Mostly, the kid smiled regularly. Even then, laying in his bed with two broken bones, numerous scratches and a wallpaper of bruises, the kid managed a weak grin. Maybe it was the pain medication, but John didn't think so. Despite his terrifying time on his camping trip, Sam was essentially happy.

John spent several more minutes in the boy's room, watching him slumber. Sam slipped quickly into a deep sleep. Before leaving the room, he again brushed the boy's floppy bangs out of his face and caressed his smooth cheek.

He felt his wife's hand on his shoulder and looked up to see she had entered the room to place a set of small crutches beside the bed. John felt the rock like tension in his neck begin to release. He leaned his head into Mary and took comfort from her presence as she said softly that Sammy would be okay. What 'okay' meant in the Winchester house was always a rolling target. Sam's leg would heal. His scrapes and bruises would fade. It appeared from his rambling discourse that Sam avoided a bullet in not knowing what had actually come after them.

Whether the same was true for his older brother was a question that hung on the air during John's next stop. He watched as Mary went down the stairs and he nodded to Bobby who had just walked Dean up to his room. John paused outside his oldest son's door then opened it without knocking.

Dean sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands, rubbing weariness into his eyes with the heels of his hands. He looked lost still, and he shifted his gaze up at John's approach. He stood, as if expecting to receive an order.

"Does Sam need something?" the teen asked.

"No," John shook his head as he stepped forward. "I do."

Before Dean could ask what, John wrapped his arms around his son and hugged him to his chest. Dean stood rigidly for a moment then trembled and slumped in the embrace, surrendering to it and his fatigue. John felt the boy shudder as Dean valiantly fought back a sob.

"I know things got rough out there, son," John said in a tense voice. "You did good. You handled it like a real trooper, Dean. You did one hell of a job taking care of Sammy. He's home safe because of you."

The teen mumbled awkwardly, brushing off the compliment in confusion and embarrassment. John released him and nudged him to sit back on his bed. John placed himself beside Dean and draped his arm over his son's shoulders.

"I spoke to the rangers," John said with pride straining his vocal cords. "You carried your brother nearly five miles through some rough terrain while you had a concussion and hypothermia. Men twice your age would have pissed their pants and just given up when faced with that, but you didn't."

"Had to take care of Sammy," Dean said softly and distantly. "I did like you always say and followed rules. I had plan, and I made up rules for it. I don't remember most of them right now, but I know I don't like trees."

"Okay," John chuckled softly, his throat constricting at the child-like innocence in his son's cloudy eyes. "So we'll mark forest ranger and tree surgeon off your future career list."

"Yeah, they were like those mean Wizard of Oz trees," Dean rambled. "Only they didn't throw apples, and we don't live in Kansas. Plus, Led Zepplin was there, I think."

John said nothing in response to that. The off-the-wall observations that used to tumble out of Dean's mouth as a toddler flooded John's mind. Screwball memories previously lost to time reappeared. Questions about Bigfoot, bears and sea serpents were among the first to emerge once again. John sighed contentedly at them before returning his thoughts to the still-shocked teen seated beside him.

"What matters is that you took care of Sam," John told him warmly. "Your brother is okay because of you."

"He's not okay," Dean shook his head. "He's hurt."

"Yeah, he broke his leg," John nodded, not downgrading the injury merely to soothe his eldest. "You heard him crying and saw the pain on his face. Sometimes, it hurts more to see someone you care about hurt than if you had the injury yourself. There's no good medicine to help with that."

Dean nodded solemnly. There was an understanding and wisdom beyond his years in his glazy and unfocused eyes that pained John for precisely the reasons he just uttered. He took a deep, steadying breath and told himself to keep talking.

"His leg hurts, but it will heal," John assured his eldest. "You're not responsible for him getting hurt, Dean. You're responsible for him being rescued. You both came home safe and sound to your mom and me because you both kept your heads in a pretty scary and dangerous situation. I know what you did for your brother. He was brave because you gave him a reason to be; you made him feel save. You saved his life and your own. I want you to know that couldn't be prouder of you, Dean."

Dean stared at the floor. John did not know if the boy was not comprehending him or if his injuries and weariness were creating too much of a fog in his brain. Dean could put on a showing of such cockiness and confidence, but John saw the fear in the boy. He saw the fear that he was a burden and worthless outside of his ability to watch over his brother. Bringing Sam back was important to Dean, but bringing him back unharmed in any way (including a single scrape or bad memory) was more important. Bringing Sam back broken essentially broke Dean. John sighed, knowing his words were too little in the comfort arena, but it was the best he could do in that instant. Rather than try again, John nudged his son's shoulder, signaling the kid to lay down.

"Now, I have a plan for you," John commanded. "Sleep. Can you manage that?"

Dean shrugged then nodded. John took the relaxed droop of the teen's shoulders as agreement.

"Sam's not totally loopy by the way," Dean said through a mighty yawn as he dropped his head to his pillow. "I told him some crap story about ketchup being magical and then I kind of dared Bobby to eat one of Bambi's friends while it was still breathing. Sam just wants to prove me wrong. Not sure if you've noticed, but he's getting a little argumentative lately. You and Mom should do something about that."

John chuckled dryly then stood and pulled up the covers of the boy's bed. He tucked in his son then nearly choked on a lump in his throat as he realized it was the first time he had done that since the night the boy disappeared at age four. Dean rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillows.

_So many years lost_, John sighed, _and I nearly lost both of them again_. _God, why do you keep doing this to my family? First, you let my father take off; then something takes my sons. Now this? What the hell do you have against me? Do whatever you like to me, but leave my boys alone. Please, I'm begging. _

He grounded his teeth angrily but exhaled his tension quickly as Dean stirred and twitched, mumbling quietly.

"Shh," John soothed and softly pet the boy's hair. He could feel one of the knots that caused his concussion under his dark hair. "Relax, Dean. You're home. You and Sam are safe, and your mom and I are here. You're okay, son."

The boy murmured his brother's name then his breathing evened out. John sat with him for several more minutes, leaving only when he felt certain the teen was sleeping peacefully.

John descended the stairs and arrived in the kitchen to find Mary and Bobby seated with two pizza boxes on the table and several plates set out for a meal. She shrugged as she looked up at her husband.

"I attempted to comfort them with food," Mary said guiltily. "Pizza from Mario's—each got whichever type they wanted. Sam favored the veggie special with pineapple and extra anchovies. Dean announced that eating an anchovy is the equivalent of eating an eyebrow. Not sure why he thinks that. I'm hoping it's the concussion."

"With Dean, you never know," Bobby offered quietly.

"You'll prefer his choice: bacon, sausage, peppers and onions," Mary continued. "I also got them premium hand-churned ice cream and cherry pie from McCourt's Diner."

"Cherry Pie and ice cream?" John blinked, loading is plate with barely warm pizza slices. "They must be tired if there is any left over."

"Eating didn't interest them much; sleeping did," Mary nodded, handing Bobby several slices of his own before dropping wearily into a chair between them. "I suggest you both take what you want now because there is no way either of them will have such small appetites tomorrow."

Her words were still tense and on the verge of frantic, as if she had been holding herself together and composed for the sake of her children and could no longer bear the strain. Never one to pass up a free meal, Bobby's stomach growled its thanks. John gnawed on his room-temperature slices. He chomped hard on the crust and nearly fractured a tooth with the force. Bobby sensed the man's angst and sighed.

He had expected blow up with the man. John didn't always like the boys spending time with Bobby. The hunter knew it was just the rougher side of John's personality, a jealousy born of the years he lost with his sons. It would rear it's grouchy head with his Poppa Bear routine. Bobby already felt guilty as all hell that anything happened to the boys while they were with him. He figured he deserved whatever rash of shit John was about to throw at him. Bobby didn't think he had made a mistake. Life just happened, but that didn't make him feel any less guilty. He just wished he had been able to protect them better.

"You got something to say?" Bobby asked.

"Just tired of the universe finding ways to take potshots at my family," John replied.

"We know this wasn't your fault, Bobby," Mary offered, seeing the hesitation in their neighbor's eyes. "Even if John had been with you, the same thing would have happened. Actually, it probably turned out better because John didn't go. That left us both here to summon help."

Bobby nodded his thanks, but her words did nothing to sooth the terrible thoughts of what might have happened from assaulting his mind. It only helped a little when John nodded in agreement with his wife.

"Nothing any of us could have done to prevent this," John offered in his deep rumbling voice. "If what your friend Summer said, that thing was around for nearly a century, but no one knew it was back until those hikers disappeared the other day."

"Yeah," Bobby agreed hollowly. "At least, I put it out the damn thing out of its misery and saved someone else from having a night worse than those two boys did."

John nodded. This, he knew, was the essence of the hunter's creed. You can't bring back those that are lost, but you can save someone else from a similar fate. He still had a hard time accepting how often the creepy and dangerous stuff happened to his kids. Bad luck seemed too flimsy an excuse. Of course, just because he didn't believe in coincidences didn't mean they couldn't happen. Bobby could read the troubled thoughts on his friend's face and shook his head.

"I just wish I knew why it was my kids that these things find," John said quietly.

"I don't know what to tell you, John," he sighed. "I know that even during a war, people's cars get stolen and houses burn down without it having anything to do with the front lines. There's no reason to think this was anything other than random, evil crap that happens. What is amazing is that we all got lucky."

Lucky wasn't exactly the truth of it, Bobby knew. If it hadn't been for that idiot nudge from Secret Agent Halo about Big Foot, he might never have thought to call Summer Proudfoot at the last minute. Without Summer's help and connections, Mary might not have found the boys, or simply found them too late. Angels, Bobby was realizing, walked a very thin line, and you needed to squint a bit to see if they were crossing it.

"What isn't lucky is the fact that your boys saw something," Bobby continued carefully.

"They didn't," Mary disagreed. "At the hospital, I asked them what they saw happen. Sam swears it was a bear. He believes it chased them. They took a tumble down that ravine and that's all he knows."

Bobby nodded slowly. Okay, Sam he could buy. The kid was the furthest in front and had his nose glued to his map and compass so much during the trip it was amazing he didn't walk into a tree half of the time.

"What did Dean say?" Bobby wondered and from the look on Mary's face, he knew even she didn't believe her son's answer. The haunted look in her eyes was so similar to the one he saw in her oldest son's that Bobby didn't need a verbal reply to know the truth.

"He said must have been a bear," she replied evasively.

Bobby shook his head. The words, the phrasing, those were cover ups and denials. The answer was one that people who saw serious crap offered when they didn't want to sound crazy but couldn't convince themselves that they saw nothing.

"He looked right at it, Mary," Bobby said shattering her final straws of hope. "That slice on his arm? He was facing the damn thing when it swiped at us. I know he saw it. It was a dark, but he must have seen it."

John folded his hands, lacing his fingers tightly, in front of him and exhaled loudly like he was frustrated or had just been sucker punched. He knew it was too much to hope that they might convince Dean that his memory was the after effects of his concussion and exposure sickness. Bobby, however, figured it was his job to disabuse them both of that illusion.

"Look, I know you want to protect them 'cause they're your kids, and they've been through enough crap already in their lives, but I don't see how you can ignore this or just hope it goes away," Bobby shook his head. "You ignore this and two things are gonna happen to Dean. He's gonna turn in on himself and start thinking his head was playing tricks so that he can't trust himself. We all know that boy already has enough insecurity about that head of his and what it's worth so that's not a viable solution. Otherwise, if he don't think he imagined it, then we have option number two. He's gonna start searching for answers on his own. That don't usually end well unless you go to the right people. You keep silent about your history, and he won't know he can ask you. It's not a real stretch to figure he'll be coming to me most likely. I'm giving you notice: I won't lie to him."

"He might not remember it clearly," Mary suggested. "He's got a mild concussion. He might think whatever he saw is a delusion from that and accept it."

"Sure, but I'm asking: What's your plan if that don't happen?" Bobby countered. "He may like to play dumb to get out of things, but that boy is not stupid. Neither of them are. If Sam starts asking Dean about what he saw, who knows what he'll tell him. Get this through your heads: Dean looked a friggin' Wendigo in the eye from six feet away. You don't forget something like that. That's enough to make a grown man, a damn hunter even, feel terror grip his heart and loosen his bowels. As for Sam? He's been eying all the books in my library for a long time. It ain't a question of if but a question of when before he asks to borrow one."

"Say no," Mary replied, tackling the easier problem in Bobby's lecture.

"You're not that stupid, Mary," Bobby said. "If I say no to Sam, he'll get his crafty brother to snag one for him. Or have you forgotten Dean's nickname in Chicago was The Artful Dodger?"

Mary shook her head, not wanting to think about that and how her sons were when they came home a year earlier. Her job was to protect them. They lived in a stronghold against the supernatural. Their house was a former church that rested on consecrated land. There were demon warding sigils hidden in the farmhouse-style hexes that decorated the outside of the house. There was a constant ring of salt around the house, allegedly there to keep slugs from her flower gardens (the ones that contained a variety of protective plants). Keeping them from the knowledge she held was another form a protection. That the universe seemed to keep nudging them toward a full-on confrontation with the supernatural world was not something she was prepared to accept.

John hung his head as Mary ran her hands nervously through her hair. She once kept the secrets about the evil things that sliced and bit and clawed and killed from her husband. Whether it led, directly or indirectly, to the abduction of their children neither of them knew. Bobby claimed everything he knew said that Mary was blameless, but John could see in his wife's eyes that Mary carried guilt (whether she should or not). Still, both agreed that opening that door to that world and showing it to their children didn't feel right.

"All that matters right now is that they're home, and they're going to be fine," Mary insisted.

"Yeah, for now," Bobby argued. "I know I ain't their parent, but those boys are as good as kin to me. I know that you both want to protect 'em from everything out there, but you gotta know that you can't. This weekend proved that. I'm a believer in the idea that knowledge helps with prevention. If you know there's dog shit in the yard, you're careful where you step; and if you do step in it, you know how to get it off your shoe before it eats you."

"What the hell kind of dogs have you owned?" John wondered as he yawned. As the room fell silent, he caught them staring at him. "Sorry. Didn't think I said that out loud."

This topic was beyond his faculties at the moment. He was home. He was relieved his sons were there as well. He exhausted. He wanted burn his dirty clothing, get cleaned up and then check on his kids one last time before settling into his own bed. Tomorrow, he told himself as he yawned again, he and Mary would worry about this tomorrow. Bobby sensed their fatigue—he was suffering from it too—but he wouldn't just drop the subject. The gnarled hunter had received a warning, kind of like cautionary advice, from an archangel on this subject, and Bobby felt he had shut his mouth too long about it already.

"Listen, you don't have to decide anything tonight, but start giving it some serious thought," Bobby continued. "You may feel better thinking our boys believe this was a bear that attacked, but I don't. You know as well as I do that there are dark and nasty things in the world, and they're not all in the woods."

THE END

**oOoOoOo**

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**A/N:** Thank you for reading.

The next story in this series is in progress. Look for 'IN The BEGINNING' to be published in a few months. It will pick up some of the threads left hanging in this story and continue this AU tale of the Winchester clan. At this time, four more stories are anticipated if there is sufficient interest from readers.


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